It doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll see hands-free gestures forced into every franchise, but at the very least you can apparently count on seeing “some form” of Kinect integrated in all of Microsoft Studios’ first-party offerings. Eventually.

Speaking with GameSpot this week, Microsoft Studios (have you caught on to the removal of “Game” from the division yet?) boss Phil Spencer said, “It’s not a mandate that everything we do in first-party has to support Kinect right now,” reaffirming comments made last year.

“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 adds, “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.”

It was asked numerous times during E3 if fall 2012′s Halo 4 might use Kinect somehow, and Microsoft continually dodged answering. Make of that what you will.

One first-party property that’s rumored to be getting adapted to Kinect is Remedy’s Alan Wake. Confirmed to exist by the developer prior to E3, but mysteriously absent from the show, the next Alan Wake ‘experience’ isn’t DLC or sequel, though the latter hasn’t been made a great secret. Remedy’s even developing a brand new facial animation system for it.

Alleged leaks have pegged the upcoming project as a potential XBLA title called Alan Wake: Night Springs, though that remains unconfirmed. Addressing the franchise this week, Spencer indicated that a new Wake is not in fact officially greenlit.

“I read [Remedy's news]. I don’t know that they’ve signed it with anybody. … I’d love to work with Remedy again. We have ongoing conversations with them,” he told Joystiq, while also admitting Alan Wake didn’t do as well at retail as Microsoft hoped.

I think the stuff they’re doing now they wanted to incubate…They wanted to incubate internally. Like I said, I don’t think they’ve signed it with anybody.”

As the game’s publisher, Microsoft would be the ones to know about this. So unless Spencer is playing with the truth to avoid stepping on the shoes of an impending reveal, looks like we’ll have to wait a little bit longer for the next trip to Bright Falls.


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