Microsoft will soon begin transcribing in-game Xbox voice chats

Microsoft announced yesterday the release of a Game Chat Transcription feature on Xbox One and Windows 10 PCs, which brings speech-to-text and text-to-speech capabalities on both platforms. (Via Windows Central) Once it’s enabled, players can convert in-game voice communications into text that they can read on their screen, or have their chat text spoken aloud to other players in the game.

The new capability was introduced on Microsoft’s Accessibility blog, where the company described it as “a new way to communicate that creates a more accessible and inclusive gaming experience for everyone.” Game Chat Transcription will first be supported in the Xbox Play Anywhere title Halo Wars 2, but Microsoft plans to bring it to other games in the future. You can see how it works in the screenshot below:

To turn on the feature, you’ll have to head over to Settings > All settings > Ease of Access > Game chat transcription on the Xbox One. On a Windows 10 PC, you can enable it by opening the Xbox app and go to Settings > General > Game chat transcription.

The new capability seems definitely promising, though it’s still not clear if there will be some limitations: will it work in games that support cross-play multiplayer between Xbox One and Windows 10 (Halo Wars 2 doesn’t)? And more importantly, will Microsoft work with game developers to enable it on PC games that are not sold on the Windows Store? That would make sense, considering that Microsoft wants more PC gamers to use built-in Windows 10 features such as Game DVR, the upcoming Game Mode and its Beam live-streaming service.

Do you think Game chat transcription is a nice to have feature for gamers, and do you hope to see more games support it going forward? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.