Microsoft: All First-Party Xbox 360 Titles Will Eventually Use Kinect

Following a Kinect-heavy E3 showing from Microsoft, the company has now said that it's likely all future first-party Xbox 360 games will utilize the motion-sensor in some way. Talking to news site GameSpot, Microsoft Game Studios head Phil Spencer noted that, although it has not been made mandatory for first-party titles to use Kinect functionality, he believes that soon we will see every single one using Kinect in some form. "It's not a mandate that everything we do in first-party has to support Kinect right now," he explained. "But I will say, specifically with voice, that there are some things that just seem to make navigating and playing games so much easier, that I would guess the answer will be yes in the end, that you'll see all first-party games using some form of Kinect functionality." He explained further, "Whether it's voice in Forza or head-tracking in Forza, which you wouldn't say is somehow turning the Forza gameplay experience on it's head... Rather, it's just using the advantages of what Kinect brings to make the experience better. So I think there's some specific examples where Kinect makes everything better." Microsoft also launched a series of Kinect-enabled entertainment applications called Kinect Fun Labs over its Xbox Live service earlier this week, including a photo recognition Avatar maker, an object scanner, and an art app.