Earlier today, Microsoft announced that the company is releasing a new Xbox branded wireless headset next month. Priced at $99.99 and currently available on the Microsoft website, this new wireless headset will debut on March 16th, 2021. Well, it was for sale but is now out of stock.
While Microsoft and Xbox have teamed up with several 3rd party companies to produce both wired and wireless headsets in the past, it would seem that the company wanted to create thier own headset this time. Given that they’ve knocked it out of the park with both Xbox Elite controller (minus the quality issues), the Surface line-up, as well as the Xbox One X and Xbox Series X|S. I guess the company wanted to flex its technological know-how by producing this new headset. Or, it could be that they wanted something to go up against the PlayStation Pulse Headset.
“We spent a lot of time in the audio testing chambers trying to characterize and understand how the headset reproduces audio in different room environments. It goes in your living room, game room, and dorm room and we want it to sound the best for all types of audio.” said Erik Garcia, Project Architect and Lead. “In the same way, the team studied gameplay to ensure great sounding chat with a sensitive mic to prevent background noise.”
As it’s called, the Xbox Wireless Headset will include features such as an adjustable, dual-beamforming voice isolating microphone that can be tucked away when not in use. Automute functionality (can be toggled on/off), Bluetooth connectivity so that you can use this on the Xbox and PC, and mobile devices. It also supports several popular spatial sound technologies such as Windows Sonic, Dolby Atmos, and DTS Headphone: X. The Xbox Wireless Headset will also provide up to 15 hours of battery life. That last bit doesn’t seem as impressive, but we’ll reserve judgment until we get one to play with.
Ironically, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this new Xbox headset. Those sneaky folks managed to hide the headset in plain sight during the Xbox Series X|S trailer released back in October 2020.
Rest assured; we’ll be reviewing this headset as soon as we can get our hands on one, that is. But for now, it’s nice to see that Xbox is getting into the headset game.
