Kinect is the secret weapon of the Xbox One game console from Microsoft; if the camera fails, the software giant can count its prospects of owning the living room good bye. While the camera is mainly designed for motion detection and voice commands, the Kinect is also a central part of Microsoft plans on advertising.

“With the new Xbox One, the technology and Kinect have improved a lot,” says an Xbox Live advertising technical account manager to StickTwiddlers in an interview. “The voice recognition, the way you speak to your Xbox, and the transition between gaming and watching TV is a lot smoother, and hopefully we can transpire that into advertising that we do.”

The general concern here is whether or not advertisers could use the Kinect to gain too much information about users and their actions, but according to the unnamed Xbox Live advertising technical account manager, that is not the case.

“There’s the game producers who have a different API, so a different set of code and system that they use, and they’ve got a lot more control of the whole thing,” said the unnamed developer, “whereas, from the advertising point of view, we have a slightly more limited set, which is designed to protect the user. The company is very keen on protecting the user from any sort of abuse, so we can’t do certain things.”

Microsoft has meddled with camera-based interactive advertising before on the Xbox 360 via its NuAds program. With the NuAds program, users are encouraged to use gesture and voice commands to change the ad or take part in other activities. Advertising on the Xbox One with Kinect integration could work in a similar manner, though we expect it to be more seamless since the platform is built with advertising mind and not just a afterthought.

We’re not sure if many potential Xbox One users would find this advertising program to be satisfactory. Users have to pay a yearly $60 fee for Xbox Live, they shouldn’t be experiencing any form of advertising. If advertising is going to be a big thing on the Xbox One, Microsoft should then allow users to have a choice in either paying for Live and never see a single advertisement, or choose to see ads without paying but still have the option to play multiplayer games.

[via StickTwiddlers, image via Xbox]