Microsoft Sidewinder Game Voice

by Microsoft

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004Z474
• Item model number: D90-00001
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #110,731 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 9, 2001

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Communicate or die--the common problem of all team-based games. Now talk to your friends during your PC games instead of typing, with SideWinder Game Voice. It enables effective team play over Internet or LAN connections. Gameplay is uncompromised and the sound is terrific! Have your friends join in on the action with Game Voice Share software, available for free download.

Benefits include voice command and control within games. Game Voice comes with a speech recognition engine that allows you to simply speak a command like "grenades" or "flaps down" within a game instead of hunting for the keyboard shortcut. Use one of the prebuilt profiles or create your own. You can also find and connect to your friends easily. Based on instant messaging technology, Game Voice's connection management software lets users quickly and easily find and connect to their friends. It also shows users when their friends are online. And you can talk to your PC. Game Voice includes a quality voice-cancellation mic for optimal speech recognition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Product for the Novice to Hard-Core Gamer, January 10, 2001

By 

"skipper901" (Edina, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Microsoft Sidewinder Game Voice (Personal Computers)

I have to admit, I was more than a little scared at even plugging this thing in to my computer, seeing the white Microsoft logo gleaming on it, but it was well worth it. The software installed effortlessly, and hardware installation simply required plugging it into a free USB port, and a few audio jacks.

The software is upfront and helpful in configuring the product. You can easily call anyone using the product online, invite them to join a game, or simply chat over the net. Adding voice commands is easy and multiple profiles are easily to manage.

There is a handy jack that lets you plug your current speakers into the Game Voice, and a small switch lets you toggle between your traditional speakers and the headset & microphone. The buttons are also very easy to use.

All and all, this product amazed me. The two complaints I can make are that the system of issuing game commands could have been improved, but Microsoft did a great job. The other is a few issues with Windows 2000 and using the chat feature, it simply will not connect. I suspect most gamers will use this product in Windows ME or part of the 9x series, as I did, so it should not be an issue.

Watch out with the tech support, knowing Microsoft, you'll either have to pay by the minute, or send an e-mail and have to wait several days or weeks to get a response if any.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Had Doubts, Pleasantly Suprised, June 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Microsoft Sidewinder Game Voice (Personal Computers)

Well, when first considering to buy this product, I was a bit hesitant. I also knew there were other viable options out there for less or no money. One of my biggest worries was performance. I am an Everquest addict, and knowing the game takes a lot of resources to play, I was worried that Game Voice just wouldn't cut it. However, after setting Game Voice to run at a higher priority in the background processes, there was little or no performance reduction. Another worry was voice recognition. However, after some game play, I noticed very little mixups in voice recognition. After adjusting the Mic volume, voice recognition errors were non-existant. Something I haven't tested yet and that worries me, is using the chat channels to talk with other players over the internet. If you're behind a NAT/Router setup on your DSL, connection might pose a problem. However, I've run across a few player groups in Everquest that seem to be using this functionality without issue. I also have a Microsoft Strategic Commander, and one thing I like about Game Voice over Commander, is that Game Voice's command list can be bigger than MSC's. One arguement not to use Game Voice as opposed to a product like Strategic Commander(multiple button combinations) is that the command response time is a bit slower than a multi-button console. Well, depending on what game you have, this might be more or less true. However, when I measure the keyboard/Multi-Console and Mouse operations necessary to do some functions in the game, it can be very unwielding to perform all of these functions(while running/moving etc in the game). Whereas the ease of just saying a few commands(leaving hands free for other operations) in Game Voice makes it a very attractive addition to the gamer's arsenal in the world of today's challenging games.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Topnotch Headphones... Lame Software., April 3, 2001

By 

Daniel Dean (Myrtle Beach, SC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Microsoft Sidewinder Game Voice (Personal Computers)

My friends and I used Roger Wilco all the time, so this looked like a good idea, and as I'd hoped -the headphones are topnotch.

Also well made is the "puck," as it is commonly called, due to its distinct shape. The puck connects between your computer and the headphones, giving you a volume control and a mute button, as well as several other buttons that allow you to chose specific people to communicate with during the game. This is excellent for when you and your friends aren't all on the same team.

The puck's best feature, however, is that you plug your speakers into it, as well as the headphones. Then, there is a switch that lets you toggle between the two. This saves you from the hassle of reaching around to the back of your computer to change plugs- Something any headphone-user can tell you is a huge pain in the @ss!

Now let's take a look at the software. It consists of two aspects: Voice Command and Communications.

The voice command software allows you to replace certain game-keys with one-word voice commands. So instead of hitting the "reload" or "inventory" button, you can simply say, "reload" or "inventory" to the same effect. I couldn't care less about this feature.

The communications software works similar to RogerWilco or BattleChat, allowing you to speak with your friends and teammates while playing `online' games. In addition, it uses those puck buttons (mentioned earlier) to good effect. Unfortunately, despite those cool features... we had problems with it:

1-It's beefy price means many of your friends won't want to purchase GameVoice. They can get the *free* version of the software and use a regular headset to talk with you, but from what we discovered, there were a LOT of bugs in this version.

2-GameVoice forces you to use Microsoft Instant Messenger in order to connect with each other. NOBODY uses that program. AIM and ICQ are *way* more popular.

3-The voice communication quality was under par (but not because of the headphones).

So in short- we ended up using RogerWilco instead of Microsoft's program, but still kept these headphones.