Dolby Atmos surround sound is coming to Xbox One and Windows 10 next year

Microsoft will implement official support for Dolby Atmos on Xbox One and Windows 10 next year.

Dolby Atmos, the positional audio technology, is something not many will be familiar with. Though it started in cinema, the gaming community was introduced to it more recently with Overwatch on PC.

Blizzard's shooter is probably the first game to enable the Atmos support on regular stereo headphones. Atmos makes locating enemies above and around you much easier, and next year, Xbox One and Windows 10 will officially support it.

The news was revealed by Major Nelson, though no released window was given. Atmos support also extends to movies, though in this case it shows off much better on Atmos-enabled speakers.

The Blu-ray app on Xbox One already supports Atmos if you're in the Preview Programme. Also available to Preview members is the Blu-ray Bitstream pass-through, which does include Atmos support.

It remains to be seen if native Windows support means we'll be able to use Atmos with non-supported games.