Phil Spencer, the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Studios, has praised both Sony and Nintendo in a recent interview with the official Xbox magazine. Spencer says that Nintendo’s highly regarded first party titles are an amazing asset to the Kyoto based company. He went on to say that Nintendo plays on the heartstrings of gamers and that Microsoft has done this with some success on Killer Instinct.

“Nintendo, I think – and there’s some argument about this – that their first-party is such an amazing asset…Their first party studios and IP can lead what they do as a company and the platforms are almost in service to the IP – not in a bad way.”

“They have such iconic stories and this will seem somewhat random, but when we go back and do something like Killer Instinct, a little bit of the history of your franchise can actually be important part…