Microsoft Adds Chat Transcription to Xbox One/Windows 10 Games

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Microsoft is introducing a new feature as part of a pilot program for Xbox One and Windows 10 gamers this week. It's called Game Chat Transcription, and will convert everything you say in a game over voice chat to text and keep a record of it. It can also convert any text written in-game to speech.

On the face of it, this may worry some gamers wondering why Microsoft decided to start recording what they say. First and foremost, it's an accessibility feature. But it's also a useful feature for all players if, for example, someone on voice chat is being annoying. Instead of listening to them you can opt to just read what they are saying as the conversion happens in real-time.

The same is true if you don't feel like speaking. Game Chat Transcription will take what you type and turn it into speech instantly. There's even options as to which voice other players will hear.

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In order for Game Chat Transcription to work, games need to add support. So initially only Halo Wars 2 will have it available as a feature. That's sure to change quickly, however, as Microsoft adds in support for its other games and developers use whatever API Microsoft releases to allow easy integration.

Activating Game Chat Transcription is an easy four-step process as the Microsoft Accessibility Blog explains:

  1. Go to Settings > All settings > Ease of Access > Game Chat Transcription.
  2. To transcribe other players' voices into text, select Speech-to-text.
  3. To have your chat text read aloud to other players, select Text-to-speech.
  4. To choose the voice that other players will hear when your chat text is read aloud, select one of the available voices in the Text-to-speech voice menu.

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