Xbox Series X Won’t Have An Optical Audio Port in Order to Save Money and Space - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 September 2020 / 4,976 Views
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer in an interview with IGN Unlocked explained why Microsoft's next generation console, the Xbox Series X, does not have an optical audio port. The reasons were simple enough. It is a way to save some money and space.
"So if you look at a part on a console that’s maybe one, or two dollars and you say, 'okay, how big of a deal is that inside of a console?'" said Spencer. "That’s a few hundred dollars. But then you say, 'okay, we’re going to plan to sell, you know, 100 million of these consoles.' So you take two bucks over 100 million now you’re $200 million over the life of the program.
"You know there’s all of these decisions are things that we think through very deeply and try to figure out where the plans are. And I know with everything that we don’t do that we used to do, there’s going to be somebody who’s disappointed and it’s not the funnest part of the job, but I think we have a plan for the future."
Phil Spencer in the same interview discussed the upcoming lineup of games coming to the Xbox One and Xbox Series X, how he would like to see MechAssault make a return, and that the Xbox Series X is still planned for a Holiday 2020 release. He also mentioned that Microsoft is not working on a revival of Scalebound.
The Xbox Series X will launch in Holiday 2020.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I use optical for my Astro A50 headset. This basically makes my $250 headset useless.
The A50s are excellent.
With that said, if your main concern is sound quality, you can do better for less money with the common audio brands. Gaming headsets, at this price level, only make sense if you want gaming-specific features like flip up/down mic (to mute/unmute), easy controls for chat and game audio separately, and the like. When I bought them, I was playing a lot of Destiny with other people. But, my gaming habits have changed lately, so I wouldn't make the same purchase today.
100 million?
That's mighty optimistic, Phil.
At least is more reasonable than this gen whe one high up talked about 1B
There's better context in the interview
I imagine we don’t know the plan like he does. $300 Lockhart and a dedicated Xcloud box and this is more then possible.
Don't worry we will held him and you accountable for the 100M projection. With that in mind how much can be considered a failure?
I imagine MS planned to sell 100 million Xbox 360s and Xbox Ones at some point, then the plan fell apart, spectacularly in the base of the X1.
I can certainly understand the reason. Unfortunately if PS4Pro didn't had it I wouldn't be able to use 4K or HDR on my TV due to the surround system not having passthrough for it so I have the console linked to the TV and optical audio connecting the console and surround (the ARC on TV wouldn't help as well since it doesn't return 7.1 to the surround).
But it is just a little odd since they are also trying more on the audio solutions compared to this gen.
It truly is a game of cost benefit on consoles.
I can see this being more of an issue with these new consoles supporting HDMI 2.1 as well. Already with my One X the receiver won't support ALLM, FreeSync, or 1440p@120hrz, yet both my Xbox and TV do. And even though I only use 5.1, ARC and Optical from the TV to the receiver results in noticeable audio latency, and my TV will only pass through Dolby, not DTS.
Exactly, passthrough is a multitude of problems. Direct connection is much better.
I guess being the most powerful has it's costs beyond speed... presently using the optical audio on my PS4.
Do people still use Optical? HDMI is where it is at these days. Honestly no need for the port and if it brings the price down than that's great. MS have removed the Kinect Port, HDMI In Port and the Optical Port, so this should help reduce costs compared to the XB1 which expense were made to include all 3.
Yea I was just looking at this port the other day on the PS4 and was wondering how many people really use this thing. Sony is all about audio this gen as well though so I could see them still keeping it.
It is useful for me on my One X because if I pass the Xbox to the TV via my Receiver, I lose the ability to use ALLM, FreeSync, and 120hz@1440p (which is useful for twitch shooters like Modern Warfare on my TV, as it cuts the Input Latency down from about 20ms to less than 10). The other alternative is to pass Dolby Digital from the TV back to the receiver via ARC or Optical, but those both produce a noticeable audio latency with my setup.
Just look at my post, I use the optical along HDMI because of restrictions.
Been using HDMI since the 360 Elite in 2007. This is non news.
I used TOSLINK on PS2 and it had better sound than anything at the time. HDMI does it all. I have my Switch hooked up to bluetooth speakers through a bluetooth transmitter plugged into the 3.5cm jack.
Tim + Apple in order to save time and words....I'm not nearly the audiophile that I once was. It's part of being lazy really. I still use optical, and would not appreciate being forced to change my setup as part of my next gen console purchase.
Really bad decision, TOSLINK is very useful, many true 5.1 headsets use it. This just plus those proprietary external SSDs just narrow consumer options
Of all the things to cut back on with cost in mind...
Man, optical audio has been since Playstation 2. While it still a great way to connect your compatible audio setup; by today standards is obsolete. We are moving or trying to move to uncompressed or lossless audio data transfer and with the current Toslink specs this is impossible, it just doesn't support the new standards. The data transfer for uncompressed audio(PCM) in Toslink (optical audio) is limited to 2 audio channels. PS4 made the right move, and now Xbox SX is doing the same. Either way, you can still use your audio setup by either using a cheap hdmi adapter with audio extractor or by using your tv optical audio output (with passthrough enabled), not much of an issue.
I would imagine they determined a small fraction of users were using that port.
Most likely.
Vast majority of new TV's sold in the last few years use HDMI ARC. I do, works great.
Mine have ARC and optical, neither of those when returning to surround supports 7.1, dolby, etc.
Well. That sucks.
But understandable... I connect to my TV via HDMI, then the TV connects via Optical to my audio receiver, so nothing will change for me on that front.
Guess they are trying to keep things simple and as cheap as possible.
Luck you that your return from TV isn't severely limited.
Guys just Google "hdmi to optical". You can get adapters for a few dollars.
And will you use a splitter for the only hdmi connection in the receiver?
100mill,hahahahhahahahaha.
Lets hope so
No kidding. As it stands, Microsoft has had only one system that has outsold the Super NES, and it doesn't look like X1 is gonna make it.
Who would have guessed we'd have 40+ comments on an article about XSX not having an optical audio port?
Personally I think this goes against the "no compromises" push XB has had since XB1X. Now XBSX has been marketed as the most powerful and I don't remember Phil saying it would be a no compromise situation again, but it comes off as implied based on their narrative and slogan. Boasting about being the fastest and most powerful, and then pointing out later how you're leaving some things out, doesn't sit all that well in general. Some will be ok with it, and some won't. While this is a new gen, MS is treating it as one gaming ecosystem going forward, and the fact that XB1X and XB1 ports were all the same and matched up was made out to be a big deal for upgrade transition and ease of use. Well that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Which is somewhat reasonable based on the new form factor if you're ok with that, and some will be, but some others won't.
