Motion control, Microsoft Game Studios' corporate vice president Phil Spencer told Kotaku, will change what gamers expect from games.

"Much like with multiplayer, I think it will become the norm," Spencer said. "If you are a racing game without multiplayer the game just didn't sell.

"We think that motion control, we think voice recognition, should become a part of gaming as well."

But Spencer points out that it's important not to shoehorn every franchise into the new tech. Microsoft Game Studios and the Xbox 360 don't plan to bring every single experience to Project Natal, at least not initially.

"Hacked in or quick to market ideas are not what we're looking for," he said. "We want to make sure that those experiences are world class."

Spencer says he's been surprised by how quickly and how strongly the outside development community has reacted to Microsoft's E3 unveiling of the motion controls.

"In the three months that Natal has been out the amount of support we have been able to gain has been impressive," he said. Indeed, during the Tokyo Game Show Microsoft rounded up Konami's Hideo Kojima, Capcom's Keiji Inafune and Sega's Toshihiro Nagoshi to et on stage and chat about the potential they see in the hardware.

"When you are starting something new it is important to get some creative talent to innovate," Spenser said. "The quality of the experience is going to be what defines it."

When Microsoft first decided to work on Project Natal the company shipped out development kits to all of their internal studios as a way of incubating different ideas, Spencer said. The result was a lot of interest and some new games.

What about Bungie or an internally developed Halo game, I asked.

"We're not going to hack something into Halo to get it to support Natal," he said. "We want to make sure we can only offer rich experiences."

But given the richness, the breadth of Halo's universe, it wouldn't be surprising if something came to Natal from it.

"We have great people helping out to evolve Halo," he said.

The work that those studios are doing [is] incredibly important to MGS. For Rare, this will be their fifth game in the first three years of the Xbox 360 - that's crazy. Two launch games? What studio on the planet signs up for two launch games? That's just crazy. So the productivity and effort in those two studios is just great to see.

About the Microsoft-owned Lionhead, Spencer says there are "no plans" for a Bungie or Ensemble-type reorganization with Microsoft Game Studios, adding "the next Lionhead game is definitely an MGS game". What about the game after that?

Phil Spencer - Part Two [Games Industry]

Today, we shared with our employees at Ensemble that we have plans to close the studio after Halo Wars RTM. Such a decision is never easy. Like any business, we’re accountable for making tradeoffs and the right level of investments that will drive profit and future growth. However, as we reviewed our first-party portfolio and where we need to invest and divest our resources to achieve our long-term strategies, it became clear to us that closing the studio and redeploying those resources to other more scalable ventures is the right thing for our business at this time.

Unfortunately, our decision to close Ensemble will adversely impact many of the studio's team members. Following the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new entity and have agreed to partner with Microsoft to develop future products and provide support for Halo Wars post launch. While the new company will be hiring a portion of the Ensemble employees, its size and resources prevent it from offering positions to the entire Ensemble team. We hope to integrate much of this creative talent into MGS or the broader IEB team, where we have relevant openings.

Ensemble Studios has produced many notable games over the years – including the Ages franchise – that have helped MGS become a leader in interactive entertainment. And now, Halo Wars is already proving to be a hit by people who have seen and played early versions of the game. The Ensemble team is committed to continuing its development, testing and support of Halo Wars through to the completion of halo wars. We're also working closely with the studio’s leaders to ensure a smooth launch of the game in early 2009 and continuing support thereafter. We will support the studio in every way possible as they work to deliver this highly anticipated game.

This action notwithstanding, I want to emphasize that the overall investment Microsoft is making in video game development is not diminished, and we will continue to bring in talent to work on titles and franchises where we'll see the most ROI. Our priority is to continue to nurture the creative freedom that allows us to successfully drive our business strategy forward. Meanwhile, we're launching some outstanding games over the next few months. We've just launched Too Human and Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise, and soon we'll see many other games hit retail store shelves, including Scene It! 2, Fable 2, Gears of War 2, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Lips and, of course, Halo Wars.

I want to thank you for your hard work and focus as we head into the next few months and make this a blowout year for first-party games. Please be supportive and respectful of our Ensemble colleagues as they go through this tough time.

Phil

Phil Spencer: Ensemble closure is "right thing for our business" [GI.biz]

Gears of War 2? That's so 2008. We ask recently promoted Microsoft Games Studio head Phil Spencer about Gears of War 3. We heard during the show that story for the Gears of War trilogy has been completed, so what about the game design?

No, we're not involved in any of the actions between Silicon Knights and Epic - that's a relationship that they will figure out. But we are deeply involved with making sure that the future of Gears and the first iteration of Too Human are great games on our platform. At a technical level we've done work on both games to help further — in the case of Gears — squeeze out ever bit of power out of the 360, and — in the case of Too Human — set the foundation for a franchise... We're playing Too Human now at MGS and, as I say — while it's obviously not finished it's definitely showing the promise it showed a few years ago.

Eds Note: Pics of Microsoft's Phil Spencer are appreciated. We'd love to give him a GIANT FACE.

First Bungie spills some beans on the upcoming Halo 3 Beta, now Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft Game Studios, talks about the importance of the beta test and what a gamer will be able to see with MTV's Stephen Totilo.

Hit the story for more details about the Halo franchise and Spencer's take on Crackdown. Brian Crecente

Multiplayer: What's Next For 'Halo,' 'Viva Pinata' And 'Crackdown'? [MTV]

Quoth Microsoft Games Studio G.M. Phil Spencer:

"I won't duck the question. Obviously our job as a first-party publisher is to lead on our platform and to create content not only that appeals to a broad set of customers, but also content that comes out with a regular pacing to continue to freshen the shelves," Spencer said. "But I wouldn't disagree with you that there were periods this year where there were gaps that were too long from first-party."

Microsoft swears they've learned their lesson, and bows their head contritely. Florian Eckhardt

Microsoft admits first-party 360 release bungle [Eurogamer]