Sad news everybody. Remember when Microsoft announced that Jen Taylor, the voice actor of the real Cortana character from Halo, would voice the Windows Phone personal assistant? Well, if you’re a resident outside of the United States and are expected to get access to her soon, we have some bad news for you.
According to ThatMicrosoftGuy, a Microsoft employee working closely with Cortana, Jen Taylor will not be the voice of the personal assistant when she launches. In the United Kingdom she’ll have a British accent, and in other parts of the world her voice will be altered to match the regional standard.
Of course, Jen Taylor could voice Cortana in countries other than the United States, but we haven’t had any confirmation on that. So right now we’re assuming that all countries outside the United States will not have Jen Taylor as the voice for Cortana.
Definitely disappointing news. But I can’t help but wonder why? Especially in countries like the United Kingdom, who can understand Jen Taylor and her accent flawlessly. Why must we have a British speaking personal assistant when we could have the awesome Jen Taylor?
I can understand this choice for certain countries, but like I said above countries like the United Kingdom shouldn’t need an altered voice for us to understand it. Jen Taylor has a perfectly understandable accent for a British resident to understand.
@sM4llziE She will have a British accent. Not Jen Taylor. 🙁
— @ThatMicrosoftGuy (@ThatMcrosoftGuy) July 23, 2014
I guess that’s just my personal opinion. I imagine there’s a number of other reasons why Microsoft has opted to use a different voice for other countries. Perhaps one day in the future, Microsoft will allow us the option to have Jen Taylor as the default voice for Cortana. Anyway, what are your thoughts on this? Leave us your comments below.
