While Microsoft Kinect has received a mixed reception, at best, among gamers, many people have found other uses for it. Kinect for Xbox 360 used a standard USB data connection, so the homebrew PC drivers appeared for it right away, well before Microsoft's official PC version of the device with a wider field of view. While Kinect 2 is an integral part of Xbox One, MS is using a proprietary connector this time. So the new improved sensor cannot be used on a PC yet. Similarly to the Xbox One gamepad, we will have to wait until summer 2014 for Kinect 2 on Windows.

Some developers are getting their new PC Kinects much sooner than that however. Kinect for Windows v2 Developer Preview program allows developers, whose ideas were considered interesting by MS to receive early devkits. These development kits with new Kinect PC SDK are being shipped to them right now. This should provide the next year's launch with some working applications from day one. There have been many interesting uses of Kinect on PC and we are curious to see what Kinect 2 will bring with its improved image and depth recognition quality.