Kinect 2.0 of Xbox 720: 1080p Camera

While the industry may be focused on Sony and the PlayStation 4 today, some specs of the next Kinect have seemingly leaked and shouldn’t be overlooked. With Sony’s announcement, it would behoove Microsoft to try to take away some of its rival’s thunder, so a controlled leak wouldn’t be surprising, but while these specs are an upgrade over the current-gen Kinect, they’re not going to blow anyone’s socks off. Feet will remain warm.

As with most extremely-detailed-but-unconfirmed leaks, VGleaks has the full list, and it does show a marked improvement over the first Kinect. The report echoes earlier rumors that claim that every Xbox 720 will come with a next-gen Kinect, as it will be integral to the system.

First off, the field of view will increase to 70 degrees horizontally and 60 degrees vertically, while the original Kinect sports 57.5 and 43.5 degrees respectively. Due to the larger field of view, the new Kinect won’t have a tilt motor. While the current Kinect has a 640×480 camera, the new one will upgrade to a modern 1920×1080, changing from 24-bit RGB color to 16-bit YUV. The video will stream at 30 fps. The depth resolution also improves from a 320×240 to 512×424, and it will employ an IR stream — unlike the current-gen Kinect — so the device can see better in an environment with limited light. 

The new Kinect, the report states, will also shift from USB 2.0 to USB 3.0, and will reduce end-to-end latency by around 30ms, from 90ms to 60ms. 

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