Phil Spencer Teases “Something New” at E3, Explains Xbox One’s Performance Increase; Looks Forward to Sony’s Show

Giuseppe Nelva June 5, 2014 11:02 PM EST

The new Xbox division head honcho Phil Spencer is about to depart for Los Angeles and today he dropped a few more hints on what we’ll see at the press conference and afterwards.

First of all he mentioned that there are “a few” unannounced games in Microsoft’s show that he really likes and expects to be hits. He also explained that something “special” will happen afterwards:

We are doing something new after our briefing that I’m hoping becomes special. Best part of show to me, walking the floor.

He then went on to mention that he’s a little nervous about the fact that he had more control on the conference this year:

Yea, a little nervous about that but it will be a show based on what I think XBOX is about.

Spencer then stated that he looks forward to see what Sony will bring, also mentioning some of his favorite PlayStation franchises that he’d like to see return:

Looking forward to what they show. Old PS franchises I played, Mark of Kri, War of Monsters, Ico, Frequency, cool to see these.

In addition to that, he also mentioned that he’s really having fun with his new job, and explained which parts are his favorite:

Thanks, I am having fun. Love this job. Game reviews (not always favorites for the team), monthly update feature reviews, long term feature roadmaps. Fans are a great part of the job. I grew up playing games, cool to share thoughts with people who play.

He then explained that his goal is to own the IPs funded by Microsoft, even if he then admitted that there are exceptions, like Sunset Overdrive.

We don’t own 2nd party IP. In first party, it’s a mix (like it was with Gears). My goal is to own what we fund.

In the end, though, he intends to pragmatically focus on what Microsoft does own, as they can’t have all the great games:

We won’t own all the great games. Nintendo, Sony, 3rd will have them too, focusing on what we have. I can say we keep investing in 1st party.

We then get some love for small downloadable titles, in response to a fan that asked if we’ll see more of those from Microsoft’s own studios.

Yea, I like the creativity in this space, not all play mechanics support 8 hours of AAA gameplay. Huge fan of this space.

Spencer also illustrated how the Xbox One’s increase in performance due to the unlocking of the previously Kinect-only hardware resources actually works:

It has nothing to do with Kinect being hooked up. The game decides, you don’t need to disconnect Kinect. That’s right. Game decides reserve, when you are back in dash Kinect will work as always, no need to disconnect. No need to unplug. Game just decides how much of GPU it wants to use.

He finally explained that commands like “Xbox Record That” will still work even if the game makes use o Kinect’s resources for other tasks:

Keep it plugged in, no need to unplug, you’ll still want Kinect for all the things it’s great at. You don’t need to unplug anything. Kinect will work great when it should and games will do what they need to do to use GPU