The Xbox One has been a public relations nightmare so far for Microsoft. The console’s debut was marred by unclear policies and misinformation, and gamers haven’t been shy in letting Microsoft know how they feel. But it’s not just the used game policy, game-sharing limitations and connectivity requirements that have people up in arms — some gamers are absolutely outraged at one of the Xbox One’s most innovative new features.
Microsoft’s Xbox One is “an ‘always-on’ Xbox tracking you with the Kinect ‘eye,’ beaming info back to some Microsoft cloud which, as we now know, is tapped by the government,” PolicyMic’s Chris Miles wrote. He even went as far as to call the console “the future of PRISM.”
Microsoft’s next-generation Kinect solution features far more enhanced monitoring capabilities than the original Kinect sensor it replaces. The device will be able to recognize individual users and it will record and transmit data on their usage back to Microsoft’s servers.
In a privacy guidelines document posted last week, however, Microsoft noted that users can disable Kinect with a simple voice command and no data is transmitted to Microsoft without the user’s consent.
