Microsoft has confirmed that a day one update will be required for Xbox One . In response to the reversal of Xbox One’s used game and internet policies earlier today, Microsoft spoke to Xbox One chief product officer Marc Whitten about how this changes the policies previously announced for the new console.

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“ We still believe Kinect is a really critical part of the architecture. We think it changes the way you can interact with your experiences.

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“ We believe that most people, frankly, are going to continue to take advantage of the connected state and all that comes with it.

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“ We’ve just been absorbing what people love and, frankly, what they want to see changed.

“There was always going to be a day one update on the console, and that’s frankly just a difference in manufacturing schedules versus software schedules,” Whitten told IGN. “We just wanted to be clear that that hasn’t changed, that you have to go online to get the software update for day one, then you wouldn’t have to be connected after that.”When asked if the update can be downloaded via smartphone tethering for customers without broadband, Whitten confirmed “sure. Any way that you can get connectivity to the Live service would work to enable that to come down to the console.”We asked Whitten about the decision to makes today’s changes and how Microsoft has responded to some of the reactions online.Whitten also confirmed that, as Microsoft first said in May , Xbox One will still require the Kinect sensor (which is included in the box) in order to play games.“We still believe Kinect is a really critical part of the architecture,” Whitten explained. “We think it changes the way you can interact with your experiences, being able to control the box with your voice or with gestures, being able to do Skype. And we want game and interactive entertainment creators to be able to know they can take advantage of it, and we want it to be completely consistent for our users. So we still are very committed to how Kinect transforms that experience.”Given that Xbox One will no longer require a connection for all users or any kind of periodic check-in, we asked Whitten how this will impact games with always-online features such as Forza Motorsport 5 or EA’s Titanfall.Given Xbox One’s digital features -- even with today’s changes -- we asked Whitten how Microsoft feels about physical media in general and if they would rather have left out an optical drive entirely.“We actually think physical discs drive a lot of really positive things,” Whitten told us. “The truth is, games are really big, and the ability to get them down quickly and have them there and play them is key. The ability to go into a store and see a wall of games, to get people to tell you about which games are great and to be able to flip them over and understand them and browse is really great. So actually, we love physical discs. We love being able to use those.”Whitten clarified that “you’ll still install [games] to the hard drive. Obviously if you download them from online that’s the way it works. If you put a disc in, it will install it to the hard drive. You will have to have the disc in the tray in order to play. One of the cool features that actually comes with that, as an example, because we built on all this infrastructure around Xbox One, is if I went to your house with my disc-based game and we played for a while, and obviously I’d installed and we played, and then I left with my disc, you could instantly buy that game with no downloads.”The instant game switching that Microsoft showed off at E3 will also still function, though players will of course need to change physical discs if they’re swapping between hard copies of games.“So much of that still works exactly as we’ve been describing,” Whitten clarified. “You’ll instantly switch between the game that you’re playing, between television and apps, between Skype, you’ll be able to snap those and move between them effortlessly. Now, if you’re talking about disc-based games, because the disc does have to be in the tray to play, if you decide to switch to a disc-based game that’s not the current one in the drive, you’ll have to go get it.”“And you’ll also, in the middle of your disc-based game, you’ll be flipping to the web browser because you want to do something or snapping to Skype or flipping over between live TV and then going back to the disc-based game,” he continued. “So that fast and fluid experience, which we think will define next-generation entertainment, is still a core part of how Xbox One works.”Whitten also confirmed that the Smart Match functionality described at E3 is still very much a part of the console despite today’s changes.Finally, we asked Whitten how long these changes have been in the works. Given Sony’s bombshell announcement last week , were these changes made in response to the news at E3?“If you think about the last three or four weeks, this has been our first chance to show our complete platform,” Whitten explained. “Everything from the Xbox unveil to showing the great games lineup at E3 last week was the time when we were able to get everybody to see our platform and get great feedback. We got tons of feedback on what people loved. They loved the games, they loved the vision of the platform, the unique things that were made possible by the architecture. But they also told us they want choice in these areas. We’ve been listening to the feedback, we’ve been reading the forums, we’ve been reading the comments since that time. So I think it’s been, thankfully for us, constant over the last week as we’ve just been absorbing what people love and, frankly, what they want to see changed.”For more on Xbox One’s policies be sure to see Microsoft’s announcements from earlier today . Xbox One is currently available for pre-order , and you can find much more information on the console available on our Xbox One wiki

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following @garfep on Twitter or garfep on IGN.