Microsoft has finally put the final nail in the coffin of its Kinect camera for Xbox One. After withdrawing the device from sale at the end of 2017 it is now no longer distributing the USB Kinect adapter for Xbox One S or Xbox One X.

That effectively ends the company's long-standing love affair of motion gaming and room mapping technology.

"After careful consideration, we decided to stop manufacturing the Xbox Kinect Adapter to focus attention on launching new, higher fan-requested gaming accessories across Xbox One and Windows 10," a Microsoft spokesperson told Polygon.

The Kinect has ceased to be. It is an ex-gaming accessory.

The move also puts paid to switching on Xbox One consoles by voice through Cortana - at least for now. The microphone on a Kinect is required to use Cortana to power an Xbox One. You can still use Cortana voice commands through a headset mic, but not to say "Hey Cortana, Xbox on".

Those with an existing Kinect will still be able to use it, although dashboard gesture controls were removed from the system a couple of years ago.

Many games that require a Kinect will not work without one, of course, and some, such as Disneyland Adventures, have been relaunched in recent times with better, non-Kinect controller support.