Kinect voice commands will always remain available on Xbox One

Xbox One’s voice commands will continue to be available even in games where developers have chosen to use the recently freed Kinect GPU power for other tasks.

Microsoft recently granted developers the power to use bandwidth normally reserved for the no-longer-mandatory camera for other tasks. However, that doesn’t mean an end to core functionality.

"Lots of people ask, ‘so, you’re taking back the GPU reserve for Kinect – does that mean I can’t say, ‘Xbox, record that?’ No. You can always say that’," Microsoft Studios creative director Ken Lobb told Eurogamer.

"So if someone says, ‘Xbox record that’ it will work on 100 per cent of the games, if you have a Kinect."

Lobb added that the recent policy changes – which as previously documented do not mean that Kinect-less Xbox Ones are more powerful – ultimately just give developers more choice.

Added Lobb: "You have more GPU, so go ahead and use it how you want. It’s more GPU plus more bandwidth to the GPU, so they both matter. So for some games it might be resolution, it might be frame-rate, or it might be, let’s throw in more enemies."