Microsoft announced that Dolby Atmos support will be added next year to both Windows 10 PCs (and tablets) and Xbox One for games.
Mike Ybarra, Xbox’s Head of Platform Engineering, said of the partnership:
At Team Xbox, we are all gamers first, and bringing Dolby Atmos support to Xbox One and Windows 10 gaming next year will bring you even further inside the action and sound of your favorite titles. A big thank you to the team at Dolby for their partnership; we’re excited to share more with the Xbox community next year.
Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology released in June 2012 by Dolby Laboratories. It was first installed in theaters across the globe and eventually released for home theaters. Dolby Atmos compatible equipment is still rather expensive, but apparently it will be possible to enable "virtually any pair of headphones" to work with the technology.
This sounds like it will use the same trick we've seen in Blizzard's overwatch, the first game to receive Dolby Atmos support for any type of headphones.
Works with any stereo headphones
Overwatch has Dolby Atmos built into the game, so you’ll get the full Dolby Atmos sound experience with any stereo headphones that you can plug into your PC.
Locate threats with pinpoint accuracy
Precisely locates and moves discrete sounds anywhere in the game, so you can quickly and accurately locate threats—and friends—from above and behind.
Brings the Overwatch world alive
Sound can come from any direction with stunning clarity and depth to completely immerse you in each battle and capture every dimension of the experience.
Intensifies the experience
Powerful moving audio heightens your awareness and increases your engagement as intense battles unfold around you.
This week, Xbox Preview members received the much-anticipated Blu-ray Bitstream pass-through which allows the Xbox console to pass audio without any quality loss to the audio equipment. This guarantees the best audio quality for Blu-ray movies.
