Microsoft pondered building Kinect into the Xbox One’s case

Microsoft even toyed with the idea of building the Kinect into the Xbox One itself, Xbox One hardware designerCarl Ledbetter has said.

That would have made it a permanent, non-removable feature – and prevented the recent uncoupling of Kinect and console.

We actually built models of that,” he said.We pushed ourselves, can we put it all in one? Is that going to work? And the technology just isn’t there yet. As soon as you have something much bigger than the Kinect sensor people don’t want to put it by the TV, it’s too big.”

Ledbetter, however, said he isn;t sad about the recent decision to drop Kinect from some Xbox One hardware SKUs.

It’s all designed together, it’s holistic. And in the version that consumers can buy that doesn’t include Kinect, it still all works,” he added.And so I think I share the same opinion that everybody does that by having more choice for the consumer, and a new point of entry for them, it’s great."

Develop has lots more detail.