This is just one of those slap-your-forehead-why-didn’t-I-think-of-that type moments. Without doubt, the Xbox 360 is the premier online social gaming console. While Sony offers the competing Playstation Network, Xbox Live is often cited for having a better, more consistent and easy-to-use matchmaking and social interface for gaming with your friends.

Which leads us to wonder why an important social activity such as voice chat has taken a backseat all these years. Microsoft saw fit to introduce a relatively good keyboard for the Xbox 360 controller, but has so far only given us really cheap headsets for chat – even the pricier Xbox 360 wireless headset has less than stellar voice chat performance. This despite the fact that voice chat is an integral part of online gaming and the whole social Xbox Live experience.

Turtle Beach, a company that specializes in audio products, aims to address this inadequacy with their Xbox 360 Bluetooth Chat Adapter. The Turtle Beach adapter clips on to the back of the Xbox 360 controller and takes power directly from it. The genius comes from the fact that you can use any Bluetooth headset/mic with this adapter. Any run of the mill mobile phone Bluetooth headset has to be superior to anything Microsoft has come up with over the years.

Turtle Beach had shown working prototypes during this past E3. While pricing and availability are not yet known, I would expect this product to be out sometime later this year. I can’t wait to try this out with my Plantronics Voyager 975 headset!

Source: Joystiq