Xbox Live was first made accessible to owners of the original Xbox console in November 2002, and it, along with Sony’s PlayStation network which would follow four years later, revolutionized console gaming. While the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube technically featured internet accessibility, the Xbox brought modes of online gaming that were previously only available on the PC. Unfortunately, in the two decades since, poor audio quality has been an issue with the Xbox Live Party Chat experience, but a new update available for members of the Xbox Insider program may finally alleviate these issues.
This new update will filter microphone audio through a “noise suppression step” when in a Party Chat, which should hopefully cancel out any screaming babies, barking dogs, or any other unwanted background audio that could be picked up by a party member’s headset and get in the way of a gaming session. It won’t improve the sound of a sub-par microphone, however, though Microsoft did make available a new Xbox Stereo headset last year that should serve as a suitable upgrade.
While noise suppression may sound like a fairly superfluous inclusion to those who don’t spend much time in Party Chat lobbies, in larger groups, these chats could often devolve into a cacophony of hissing, crackling microphones, game audio reverberating from someone’s television, and all manner of background murmurs polluting a player’s voice input. Years ago, simply speaking to friends over the internet was a novelty to be celebrated, but today, particularly after Xbox has made moves to allow gamers without Xbox Live Gold to access Party Chat lobbies, it’s become clear that there are higher standards for which to strive.
In 2020, Discord issued an update that allowed users to suppress background audio that may be bleeding in through their mics, and PC players have had access to a multitude of options to dull background noise for quite some time. Yet, while features such as this would have been fantastic during the earlier days of online gaming, they are nonetheless welcome in 2022.
While the noise suppression feature will only be a part of Party Chat, for now, it could have practical applications in some of Xbox’s most populous multiplayer titles. Most crucially games such as Among Us, Roblox, and Sea of Thieves could benefit, as all of these Xbox games feature proximity chat. There’s no worse feeling than giving away a team’s location or letting secretive information slip due to a faulty mic, and, in the future, developers may be able to mitigate these issues on Xbox.
Source: PureXbox