Earlier this week, Xbox took the wraps off the Xbox Series S, announced the Xbox Series X|S price and release date, as well as the Xbox Series X price in India. And while Sony is surprisingly quiet through all this, today Xbox is adding another feather to the proverbial cap. As it turns out, the Xbox Series X|S will be the first consoles in the world to support Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision HDR for gaming.
The announcement comes from Dolby, via a tweet that also mentioned that while Dolby Atmos will be available at launch, Dolby Vision HDR is coming soon as well, in 2021.
Introducing the next level of gaming.
The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are the first consoles ever with gaming in Dolby Vision® (coming soon) and Dolby Atmos® (available at launch).
@Xbox, welcome to gaming in Dolby. https://t.co/5lkpVT8ntb— Dolby (@Dolby) September 10, 2020
According to Dolby’s announcement, users can expect massive visual improvement in games thanks to the technology. You will be able to experience 40 times brighter highlights, 10 times deeper blacks, and up to 12-bit colour depth, provided your TV supports that. Obviously, Dolby Vision and Atmos support also requires that the games you’re playing are compatible with the technologies.
This isn’t Xbox’s first time getting Dolby support, by the way. Current gen Xbox consoles support Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision HDR. However, that only applies to media such as compatible Netflix titles among other streaming services. On the other hand, the Xbox One X also supported Dolby Vision for gaming. However, even that never made it out of the Insider phase.
However, Microsoft’s next-gen consoles will be fully compatible with Dolby’s technologies, which means you can expect impressive graphics from compatible games.
Meanwhile, it’s unclear if Sony’s next-gen offerings will have support for Dolby Atmos/Vision or not. So far, Sony has refrained from giving away too much about the PlayStation 5, but hopefully we get more information soon.