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Microsoft just gave the Xbox One a big power boost – but only if you ditch Kinect

Updated Jun 5th, 2014 5:47PM EDT
Xbox One Power Boost

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When Microsoft finally unbundles the Kinect from the Xbox One later this month, it will be more than just good news for consumers; Microsoft confirmed to Eurogamer on Thursday that developers will have access to resources previously reserved for the Kinect, giving them the opportunity to make their games look even better on the new generation console, depending on how they choose to take advantage of those resources.

The original announcement came via the Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer’s Twitter account, where he wrote that the June software dev kit would increase the GPU bandwidth available to developers. When Eurogamer asked Microsoft whether or not this meant that we would start seeing more games running at full 1080p resolution, the company’s representative said the following:

“Xbox One games look beautiful and have rich gameplay and platform features. How developers choose to access the extra GPU performance for their games will be up to them. We have started working with a number of developers on how they can best take advantage of these changes. We will have more to share in the future.”

Couple this with the added features of the June software update and the free Games with Gold, and all of a sudden the Xbox One has become extremely competitive with the PlayStation 4.

Updated to clarify that developers have been given access to the GPU resources previously reserved for Kinect.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.