In an update that I’m sure will work as intended, Microsoft has unveiled a new feature that will transcribe in-game voice chat into text, or in-game chat into automated speech.
The feature has been rolled out for Halo Wars 2 on Windows 10 and Xbox One, and is designed primarily as an accessibility feature.
Don’t get me wrong: it’s a good inclusive move by Microsoft, and they’ve pledged to roll it out to more games down the road. But I’m also a realist who grew up playing Counter-Strike and using Australian IRC servers, and I can’t think of a single moment of those conversations that would be improved with robotic voice-overs.
On the Microsoft announcement post, there’s even a screenshot of the speech-to-text function in action. Here’s the chat log of their conversation:
Person #1: Press on the .
Person #2: It’s time for me to go. Back something.
#1: Now I get it when you see the resources you like hit accent it takes a while for them to actually pick him up that’s what the deal is.
#2: Yeah it’s not it’s not immediate you have to wait it out of time.
#1: That’s great it’s more people.
I cannot wait for the day this becomes available in League of Legends. Or CS:GO.
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10 responses to “Microsoft Adds Feature That Can’t Possibly Go Wrong”
Perhap it’ll be easier to nab trolls and curb anti-social behaviour, I’d be all for that.
Call of Duty transcript: “Haha you little forgot. I have a ten inch pianist and your mom loves E.T.”
Oh my god this made my morning
*spits out cereal*
I’m sure it would be toggleable surely though Alex? All the accessibility options in Windows can be switched off if you don’t want them, it seems likely they’d do the same here so if some little shit is spamming “nazis nazis hitler rape” in text chat you can probably mute it the same as you would with voice chat.
I’m pretty sure you’d have to go and swtich this on. No way this is on by default.
Yeah, this wouldn’t be enabled by default. But like all speech-to-text/text-to-speech stuff, it’s going to come out horrendously (or hilariously) garbled. I’ll put money on it. (Or a round next PAX/whenever I meet readers in the wild.)
JOHN MADDEN JOHN MADDEN HOSE HOSE
I cant wait for this to be SERVICE UNAVAILABLE IN YOUR REGION.
I imagine this will be like Twitch donation readers except they’re reading the chat instead of the donation message and instead of feeling warm and fuzzy about how much viewers appreciate you, you’ll be feeling anguish and despair over having ever existed at all.
It will probably be the same as what is on the windows phone and its not that bad.