10 percent of the console's graphics processing unit is typically reserved for Kinect functionality so now the motion camera is no longer compulsory this can be reallocated. Now, Microsoft Studios Ken Lobb has told Eurogamer what this means in practice, and reassured current Kinect owners that voice control and game capture will still be perfectly viable despite the changes.
"Lots of people ask, 'so, you're taking back the GPU reserve for Kinect. Well, does that mean I can't say, 'Xbox, record that?' No. You can always say that," Lobb explained. "If someone says, 'Xbox record that,' it will work on 100 per cent of the games, if you have a Kinect."
He continued by revealing that Microsoft has reworked the console into using a flexible system, where it can bounce the GPU and RAM depending on what you want it to do. Just because you don't have a Kinect, doesn't mean you have more RAM, though the company has optimised the console's operating system to support "flipping back and forth". So it'll listen to you some of the time, "and then pulling back if it's needed for a frame to go, he said, 'record that,' go record this thing. And you have to count for that whether you're using Kinect or not. But you get the full memory and the full bandwidth."
Of course, all this assumes developers support Kinect. If a studio wants to go ahead and create a title in which Kinect plays no part, then gesture controls and visual recognition will be suspended while the game runs. Once it's minimised, however, it's business as usual.
While it'll be up to devs to decide how to use the extra resources, Destiny creator Bungie has already confirmed it's been able to increase the fps and resolution of Destiny on Xbox One to match the PS4 version, signalling this long-awaited change could be the move Microsoft needed to make to close the gap in performance between it and Sony's consoles.
Luke Karmali is IGN's UK News Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on Twitter.