It’s been nearly two years since the release of Microsoft’s proprietary hands-free gaming accessory for the Xbox 360. In that time, Kinect has made its way into nearly 20 million homes, with a few clever users taking the device and using it for a variety of innovative and cool demonstrations. Despite a few fledgeling attempts to capture its power, Kinect has certainly helped raise the bar for deeper immersion into video games. And with the swelling chatter about the next iteration of Microsoft’s home console, gamers knew it was only a matter of time before a successor would be announced – or, in this case, let out of the bag.

An alleged Kinect 2 screenshot has drawn much attention to Twitter user SuperDaE, also responsible for releasing pictures of the Durango development kit – a rough set-up of the hardware expected to appear in the next Xbox console. An assortment of alleged “Xbox 720” documents have already been leaked onto the internet, claiming we should see the next Kinect hardware sometime next year, and the next console iteration around the same time.

The Kinect 2 is purported to ship as two separate pieces which are mounted to a user’s television, acting as eyeballs, and communicating with each other as well as with the console. This would bring an accurate field of vision and sense of depth perception, allowing Kinect 2 to more accurately differentiate players from their furniture, and from each other – very useful updates indeed, as the new hardware is expected to support up to 4 players at a time.

Whether this newly-released image is an accurate representation of any upcoming Microsoft hardware remains to be seen – but if the Durango hardware leak has shown us anything, it’s that some folks have no problem dishing out company secrets for attention.

What do you think, Ranters: have we caught yet another glimpse of what Microsoft has in store for us as early as next year? Or, are we simply in the thick of a rumor-saturated period of anxiously waiting for the next generation of console goodness?

The Kinect 2 is expected to be released along-side or close to the next Xbox console, sometime next year.

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Source: CVG