Never fear, potential buyers of the recently announced Xbox One. Although Microsoft’s next-gen console will be a very social piece of hardware, the company wants its fans to know that their privacy will be safe. A Microsoft representative has confirmed that the Xbox One can not only be turned off, but the Kinect sensor that will ship with every new console can be powered down, too.
This comes from Kotaku, who recently spoke with the representative about the growing concern over consumer privacy. As of now, the general thought is that the motion camera must be connected at all times for the Xbox One to function, but "it is not always watching or always listening.” That fact that both pieces of the Xbox One puzzle (the new Kinect and the box itself) can be powered down seems obvious. Yet, any news that can actually be confirmed is good news.
“Yes, you can turn the system completely off," the representative said. "This would use no power and turn everything off. We’ll share more details about how it all works later.
"We know our customers want and expect strong privacy protections to be built into our products, devices and services, and for companies to be responsible stewards of their data,” he continued. “Microsoft has more than ten years of experience making privacy a top priority. Kinect for Xbox 360 was designed and built with strong privacy protections in place and the new Kinect will continue this commitment. We’ll share more details later."
I suppose that’s one thing we can check off the list. We’re still in the dark about used games, the always-on connection issue, and, well, everything else. But, E3 is just around the corner.
