Latest Xbox update cuts down on your friends’ mouth-breathing

Xbox has rolled out its latest firmware update, which tackles one of the most important issues facing modern gamers: their friends mouth-breathing into the mic.

According to the update notes, users on Xbox Series X/S will now have a new option to enable noise suppression in party chats. This feature “helps remove noises like gamepad clicks, breathing and background noise from your parties.” Finally, Xbox will save us from that awkward moment where you must tell your friends they’re breathing too heavily into the mic.

It’s arguably the biggest feature an Xbox firmware update has ever rolled out, but that’s not all the update provides. Players on PC and mobile will now have the ability to jump into a game with their friends straight from captured game clips or screen shots. When one of your friends shares a screenshot or clip, you can tap “Play” on that shared media and start playing directly in a browser. Of course, the game will require cloud support, and some might require Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions. It’s probably not something most players will use too often, but it might provide some useful data for Xbox as it continues to invest in cloud gaming.

Xbox engineering lead Eden Marie also shared a few new changes rolling out with the update. These include faster boot times for the Xbox Series X/S, a fix for delisted Games with Gold not showing up in libraries, and fix for streaming bitrate and resolution issues.