Remember when Kinect had to be plugged in for the Xbox One to work? Well, now it doesn’t. Microsoft has decided to listen to all of its adoring fans who don’t want Kinect to spy on them and reversed their policy of the device being always on. This means that anyone who owns an Xbox One can walk around naked without worrying about if anyone at Microsoft is going blind.

“You have the ability to completely turn the sensor off in your settings” said Marc Whitten. ” When in this mode, the sensor is not collecting any information. Any functionality that relies on voice, video, gesture or more won’t work. We still support using it for IR blasting in this mode. You can turn the sensor back on at any time through settings, and if you enter into a required Kinect experience (like Kinect Sports Rivals for instance), you’ll get a message asking if you want to turn the sensor back on in order to continue.”

This isn’t the first time Microsoft reversed direction on policy or procedures related to the Xbox One. If you remember, Microsoft reversed course on it’s DRM policies back in June after announcing them at E3. Ever since the Xbox One was announced, it has been a PR nightmare for Microsoft and its policies. The PC software giant has reversed course several times and is doing it again. If this keeps up, Microsoft might pull a fish-tail and not release the Xbox One. With the Kinect sensor as expensive as it is, why not leave it out of the box? Microsoft still has no plans to release the Xbox One without the Kinect sensor. Although the Xbox One isn’t on my purchasing radar, it’s interesting to see Microsoft provide an option to make the Kinect non-functional even though every console will come with one.