Microsoft Details Audio, Skype, And Chat Improvements on Xbox One
Lest you forget that Microsoft has a new gaming console on the horizon, the company has been trickling out details surrounding it in the past few weeks. Next up? The audio side, and it's pretty impressive. Thanks to integration with Skype’s audio codec, Xbox One offers higher quality voice chat with the Xbox One Chat Headset compared to Xbox 360—whether you’re chatting in-game or through party chat with Skype on Xbox One. Microsoft claims that the console uses dedicated audio processing to handle Xbox One conversations via Skype and multiplayer party chats.
On the controller side, the Xbox One Wireless Controller’s new expansion port expands the data transfer rate between the controller and console. It can both capture and render speech at 24KHz PCM, which is triple the rendering sample rate and a 50 percent capture rate improvement over Xbox 360 headsets. Moreover, the Xbox One's higher $499 price tag does at least include an Xbox One Chat Headset.
Of note, voice chat will require Xbox Live, while in-game voice chat and Skype require an Xbox Live Gold membership. So much for one-and-done on the wallet side, huh?
On the controller side, the Xbox One Wireless Controller’s new expansion port expands the data transfer rate between the controller and console. It can both capture and render speech at 24KHz PCM, which is triple the rendering sample rate and a 50 percent capture rate improvement over Xbox 360 headsets. Moreover, the Xbox One's higher $499 price tag does at least include an Xbox One Chat Headset.
Of note, voice chat will require Xbox Live, while in-game voice chat and Skype require an Xbox Live Gold membership. So much for one-and-done on the wallet side, huh?
