Its a peripheral
All parts of xbox one are accessible and currently all games work perfectly fine without it, There is 1 game coming up soon kinect sports that needs it, but its still just a game that if your not interested in you still wont need a kinect.
Your innovation always wins statement is rediculous, many many things are invented and discarded if they dont server a necessary purpose or improve on the way something previously worked.
Voice commands will one day no doubt be something we all live with, but they will work on natural language not predefined phrases and will work 100% of the time. This tech does not need an expensive camera tho just a mic.
3D body tracking is what kinects real stand out function is and its launched with NO games.
