Microsoft to improve Xbox Live voice chat sound quality

Microsoft releases a major update to Xbox Live every fall. With this year’s fall update, Microsoft wants to improve the sound quality of voice chat via Xbox Live. It will use a different codec, although it is not known which one.

During a festival in Edinburgh, Jerry Johnson, the head of Xbox Live Studios, spoke to website Eurogamer, where the CEO indicated that Microsoft plans to use the fall update of Xbox Live to improve the sound quality of voice chat via the online service. The main part of the update is the Kinect software, but Microsoft also wants to build in a new codec that regulates the sound of voice chat.

“The codec we used at launch could only handle a low bitrate, and we actually still use that codec,” Johnson said. “When we introduced the service, we said that broadband was a requirement to use Xbox Live. We demanded a speed of 64k, which most people wouldn’t even consider broadband these days, but that was the minimum requirement back then. however, time to move on, especially if we want to broaden. A crackling headset on your head is not what people envision when talking about a popular form of entertainment.”

Voice chat has been available since November 2002, when Microsoft launched Xbox Live for the original Xbox. Users, especially players of team-based multiplayer games, have complained about the service’s sound quality from the start.