Microsoft celebrates Accessibility day with Xbox Party Chat Speech Transcription and more
Some of the announcements include Xbox Accessibility Insiders League and updates to Xbox support pages. Let’s check everything Microsoft announced on the Accessibility Awareness Day for Xbox with new features and more here.
Microsoft recently made several significant announcements regarding its Xbox console lineup including several Accessibility improvements. These new announcements are part of its Global Accessibility Awareness Day celebration where the company outlined its plans to improve the Xbox ecosystem. Some of the announcements here include Xbox Accessibility Insiders League, updates to Xbox support pages, and more. Microsoft also announced a new Gaming and Disability Player Experience Guide along with Party Chat Speech Transcription and Synthesis feature and accessibility-related updates to several games. In addition, the company also outlined its efforts to test new features like Dolby Vision support and more. Let’s check everything Microsoft announced on the Accessibility Awareness Day for Xbox with new features and more here.
Microsoft Xbox ecosystem pushes Accessibility features to the next level
According to the formal announcement, Microsoft affirmed that it plans to promote “Accessibility by Design”. As part of the promotion, the company also wants to create a healthy community for feedback around accessibility features. Continuing with the things outlined above, the company announced Xbox Accessibility Insider League to get feedback directly from the users. Microsoft also updated the Xbox Customer Support page with support for accessibility and easier navigation. Taking more about the promotion, Microsoft shared an updated “Gaming and Disability Player Experience Guide” with updates to Xbox Accessibility Guidelines. The new updates to the guidelines bring the version number up to 2.1.
The software giant also stated that it will release regular videos on the MSFTEnabled YouTube channel around accessibility. We also got details around the upcoming Party Chat Speech Transcription and synthesis feature coming to Xbox Series X and Series S. To simplify these are the “Speech-to-Text” and “Text-to-Speech” features. Microsoft is currently testing these features in the Xbox Insider builds for Xbox. We also got details around accessibility updates on Gears 5 and Minecraft.
Interested gamers can head to the complete announcement to check the details. The company is also making donations in the form of accessibility gaming peripherals to AbleGamers and Warfighter Engaged. Xbox owners can also earn and donate reward points as part of the Global Accessibility Awareness Day. The company will match this donation and direct the funds to Special Olympics.
Xbox Dolby Vision coming soon
Get ready to transform your gaming experience with full-spectrum visuals! Rolling out to Xbox Insiders this week: Dolby Vision for gaming on Xbox Series X|S. pic.twitter.com/iU2RktHvPG
— Larry Hryb 🏡🎮☁ (@majornelson) May 14, 2021
In addition, the company is also testing Dolby Vision gaming in the Xbox Insider Alpha ring. This upcoming feature includes support for dynamic metadata in the HDR format. Dolby Vision gaming will result in “brighter highlights, sharper contrast, and more vibrant colors” while gaming. For some context, this feature is an advanced HDR standard when compared to HDR10. Microsoft also noted that users don’t need to tweak any settings to enable support for Dolby Vision-supported games. It will share more details around the upcoming feature “soon”.
