Microsoft wants all your devices to run on Xbox One’s proprietary wireless signal - mccarthyabothent

When Microsoft announced that the parvenue Xbox Incomparable S controller would stand Bluetooth connections, I intellection, "Finally, Microsoft understands that PC gamers preceptor't want its dumb proprietary wireless dongle." But instead Microsoft definite to just hide the dongle. Today the party announced that it's licensing out the Xbox One's wireless tech to other manufacturers.

Or, As Microsoft puts it: "Expiration forward, you should expect to see both unused PCs and new accessories that support Xbox Radio receiver as we create late ways for our fans to bring seamlessly crosswise devices."

The ordinal of the former family is the brand-new Lenovo IdeaCentre Y710 Cube, which has the radio set dongle tech built straight into the chassis and so you can seamlessly soak up an Xbox One restrainer—"the ordinal clock this has e'er been done formally," says Microsoft. For citizenry who'd rather build their own PC, Microsoft says information technology plans for this tech to soon be embedded in motherboards.

The Lenovo Y710 is the best Personal computer to progress Microsoft's wireless dongle technical school into the build.

And it's not fair-minded for Xbox controllers anymore either. Microsoft name-drops partners from Astro to PDP to Turtle Beach, significant we can expect to see Xbox Wireless included in headset technical school presently, also as joysticks, et al. The textbook supports up to eight peripherals at once, though headsets are specific to stereo voice.

Microsoft is couching this as a acquire for PCs, only that's uncertain. In that location are rather a fewer radio solutions already existent in the Personal computer ecosystem, whol of which mould small-grained and some of which are more full-featured (bearing, e.g., 7.1 sound).

There's a line in Microsoft's announcement, though: "Cross-platform use across Xbox One and Windows PCs." This is the substantial key to Microsoft's announcement. Because Microsoft uses a patented wireless signal on the Xbox One, the headset market has basically broken into two halves in the past few age—the Xbox English and the PlayStation 4 plus PC side (because the PS4 utilizes the much commonplace Bluetooth standard). Microsoft's new play for PC/Xbox One wireless compatibility is inferior about the PC (as far as I can tell) and more around leveraging cross-compatibility as a marketing instrument.

Whether the Microcomputer gets a boost out of it, we'll see. Provided it becomes distributed enough, we could eventually see fully wireless PC setups that expect nothing except the tech already in your motherboard. But I have a feeling we've got many age of "It supports Xbox Wireless but also Bluetooth" ahead of us before we hit that milestone.