Not to be outdone by their biggest competitor in disappointing gamers, it has come to light that Microsoft’s Xbox One chat adapter will not be available until some time in 2014. That means any chat headset not shipped alongside the Xbox One will not work with the controller’s new port.

Like with Sony, this news comes thanks to a third party peripheral manufacturer, Turtle Beach. They sent out a press release saying that Microsoft’s headset adapter is targeting an “early 2014” release.

This, of course, wouldn’t be too problematic if the Xbox One controller featured the same audio port as the 360 controller. Unfortunately, it doesn’t. Instead, Microsoft decided to redesign the port, along with many other features inside the controller, and therefore it needs a new type of headset with a new output, or an adapter for older headsets. Yes, the same adapter that will not be available at launch. [Note: it’s unclear at this time whether a USB headset might be supported by the Xbox One console.]

It appears that as we near the launch of the PS4 and Xbox One — on November 15th and November 22nd, respectively — more and more details like this are coming out to deflate a little of gamers’ enthusiasm. While the delay of Watch_Dogs, one of the more promising games of this Fall season, is sure to be grab a lot of the attention, these missing chat options are substantial losses for multiplayer gamers.

Sure, both the PS4 and Xbox One ship with their own proprietary, mono chat headset (although the Xbox One didn’t at first), but there is no option to pipe in both chat and game audio through the same headset. So, while gamers can enjoy Battlefield 4’s single player campaign in glorious 7.1 surround sound (through each console’s optical port), they will not be able to do so, and chat, while in the multiplayer experience.

While features missing launch is not an entirely unheard of occurrence, the prevalence of delays with this forthcoming generation gives us cause for concern. Whether it’s a rushed console manufacturing schedule, unforeseen hiccups in development, or something else, the messaging is clearly getting muddied the closer we get to launch.

And what’s strange about this more than anything else is that neither Sony nor Microsoft is making these announcements. Rather, it is taking some careful digging by news outlets, or in this case a press release from Turtle Beach, to finally clue gamers in. Hopefully, this trend doesn’t continue, because there’s still plenty of time to cancel pre-orders.

How do you feel about the Xbox One chat adapter not releasing alongside the console? Why do you think features like these are not making launch?

Microsoft’s Xbox One releases November 22, 2013.

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Source: Turtle Beach (via IGN)