If you didn’t know, you can video chat with your Kinect

In an update to their blog today, Microsoft let loose news about a feature that most people did not know that Kinect had, video chatting.

Yes, if you have a Kinect, and your buddy has a Kinect, you two can video chat it up over your Kinects and TVs. Now, it gets slightly better, if you have friends that use Windows Live Messenger, you can Kinect to Messenger chat with video.

There is only one catch, you have to be a Xbox Live Gold subscriber to make the whole thing tick. Still, in terms of getting more than you may have anticipated, this is quite neat. Now, it won’t kill Skype, and no, it does not mean that FaceTime is now kaput. All it means is that users of the Kinect have one more reason to encourage their friends to get one as well.

The Kinect camera itself is actually a compelling piece of technology, as Microsoft explained:

Kinect’s new smart cameras do a lot more than an ordinary computer webcam, automatically panning, zooming, and physically tilting up and down to follow you around the room while you chat. And if another person walks into the viewing area, the camera automatically reframes the shot to fit everyone in.

Check out the product’s official documentation here if you have any questions. Microsoft was kind enough to put together a video of the it in action, take a look:

Did you buy a Kinect? What do you think of it?