It's often hard to get a read on which direction Microsoft wants to take its Xbox business. When the Xbox One was first revealed, the Redmond company was all about a persistent online connection and synergy with Kinect. After extreme backlash, Microsoft dropped the original online plans, and the Kinect was eventually decoupled from the hardware in order to lower the price. And when was the last time you heard anyone talk up Avatars, the virtual player representatives that were conceived by Rare for Xbox 360?
Now that Microsoft has seemingly fooled audiences into thinking it cares about the thriving hardcore community, it's planning to refocus on both Avatars and Kinect in a big way. A pair of software engineer positions have recently opened up — the plan is to improve the Avatars' graphics and then incorporate them across a variety of platforms, possibly including the upcoming Windows 10 operating system. Then there's this software engineer position on a brand-new team that will "prototype and build the future of premium Kinect-powered experiences."
Whether or not Microsoft finds success with these new initiatives is up in the air. I personally think Microsoft is at risk of spreading itself too thin once again — it had finally trimmed all the fat that was getting in the way of games, and now it's about to pack the pounds back on.
