For the past few years, Rare has been the face of Microsoft's motion gaming scene with its Kinect Sports line-up, most recently capped off with the arrival of Kinect Sports Rivals last month. Now that the publisher is making the motion capture device completely optional, it might seem like the developer is getting the cold shoulder.

That's not the case, according to Xbox chief Phil Spencer. He explained the studio still has utmost importance, especially considering its heritage with games like Banjo-Kazooie and Conker's Bad Fur Day.

"Rare is an important studio," Spencer told OXM. "(It has) just come off the successful launch of Kinect Sports Rivals. I think I've heard a few times from people asking about Rare – they're in the process of evaluating what they want to do next, and we're working closely with them to see what their new project will be."

He also implied that Rare had pursued Kinect games because it chose to, so what they do now will probably similarly be up to them. Of course, that doesn't shed much light on what the studio actually is working on, and the upcoming Kinect-less Xbox One might make Kinect-exclusive games hard to justify.