XboxOneChatHeadset
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Xbox One to bring higher quality voice chat through dedicated hardware and the power of Skype (updated)
It's anti-climactic when you destroy someone in Madden, yet your victory chants are muffled by substandard voice chat. Today, Major Nelson revealed that with the Xbox One and the Xbox One Chat Headset, your taunts and condolences will be heard loud and clear by all. How? Well, the console has dedicated audio processing and the new controller's expansion port provides a fatter data pipe that allows the headset to render voices at 24 KHz PCM. According to the Major, that's three times the sample rate for rendering and a 50 percent better capture rate than Xbox 360 headsets. Combine that with Skype's refined audio codec, and you've got yourself a new gold standard for in-game chat quality. And, you can hear the difference at the source link below. Only downside Best part is, Microsoft still gonna won't make you pay extra for the privilege. Update: Major Nelson was kind enough to remind us that the headset will, in fact, be included with Xbox One.
Xbox One: chat headset not included
Today Microsoft confirmed another disappointing detail about the Xbox One's launch -- unlike the Xbox 360 Pro SKU, it won't pack a chat headset in the box. In a statement to Ars Technica, the company extols the virtues of Kinect 2.0 and its multi-array microphones for chat across games, Skype and "other experiences." Chatting with the Xbox 360's Kinect introduces a multitude of issues like echoes and the device taking conversation as system commands. To replace even a cheap headset, Kinect 2.0 will need to be a massive upgrade. This seems odd considering Microsoft included headsets with almost everything since the original Xbox Live kits. However, The House That Gates Built isn't the only one breaking tradition: Sony's including a single earbud-and-mic headset with each $100-cheaper PS4. Shots fired?
