Microsoft France claims Dolby two-year exclusivity deal for Xbox Series X but quickly backpedals

Facepalm: A pitfall of large companies is that sometimes communication lines can get crossed, especially with overseas counterparts. Microsoft seemed to have had this problem yesterday when its French blog moderators posted “inaccurate information” about Xbox Series X|S having exclusive rights to Dolby Vision and Atmos.

Last month, Microsoft announced that Dolby Vision is coming to the Xbox Series X|S. On Monday, the French version of Xbox Wire claimed that Dolby Vision and Atmos would be exclusive to its next-gen console for two years. However, that does not appear to be true.

Microsoft deleted the post (archived here) on Tuesday before issuing a statement declaring it has no exclusivity agreement with Dolby.

“A blog post was mistakenly published by a local Xbox team that included inaccurate information regarding exclusivity of Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision on Xbox Series X|S,” a spokesperson told The Verge. “There is no exclusivity agreement of either tech on Xbox. We are proud to partner with Dolby to offer Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision to gamers on Xbox and will have more to share about the general availability of Dolby Vision on Xbox Series X|S soon.”

Of course, just because there is no agreement does not mean the PlayStation 5 or Nintendo Switch will support either feature. Neither Sony nor Nintendo has announced plans to add Dolby tech to their devices. However, it is still possible.

Sony’s PS5 already has Atmos when playing Blu-ray DVDs. Nothing should be stopping it from expanding support to games. Additionally, while the Switch does not currently support Dolby Vision or Atmos, its rumored Switch upgrade could be a good fit for these features.

Microsoft’s next-gen consoles already have Atmos support for gaming. Although Microsoft has not said when it is arriving, it announced Dolby Vision entered alpha testing two weeks ago. So regardless of the lack of the supposed two-year exclusivity agreement, it already has a good headstart on the competition.

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