Microsoft has confirmed a new noise suppression feature for the Xbox Series X, and it's available right now via a new system update.
The audio upgrade was stealthily announced via the update patch notes and is designed to eliminate background noise when chatting to friends on Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S. When enabled the noise suppression mode removes background sounds such as controller button clicks, heavy breathing or that one teammate who insists on blasting obnoxiously loud music while you're trying to strategize in an online game.
The official description of the feature reads: “We’ve added noise suppression to parties on Xbox Series X|S consoles to help remove unwanted noises like gamepad clicks, breathing, and background noise from your parties.”
The feature can also be disabled if you’d prefer to hear everything.
How to turn on Xbox Series X noise suppression
Turning noise suppression on is a pretty straightforward task: Open the Xbox guide, then navigate to the Parties & Chats tab.
From there select Options, and from the options menu you can enable or disable noise suppression.
The feature can be toggled on or off at any time, and is a nifty little addition to the console. Although, don’t expect flawless results, some background noise will inevitably leak through.
The latest Xbox Series X system update also adds the ability to jump into a game from your friends’ shared captures. Essentially, if somebody on your friends list shares a game clip or screenshot, you can instantly jump into that game with just a button press. This is another small quality-of-life upgrade that is much appreciated.
Meanwhile, if you’re venturing into the Xbox Series X options menu to enable the noise suppression mode, where there you should hop on over to settings and ensure your console is set to Energy Saver mode. It’s recently been suggested that having your console in the power-hungry standby mode could add around £60/$68 a year to your energy bill at current market rates, so making use of Energy Saver mode is a must this winter.
