Turns out the mic on the kinect is surprisingly good.

Here's the thing. If you don't have background noise to worry about, you can use the kinect as your main chat mic.

My brother and I were both in a party with our headsets for audio. Chat was also coming through the headsets, but we were using the kinect for voice. Not using the pack in.

It doesn't sound as good as the included chat headset, but it sounds pretty good. I sit about 5 feet away from the kinect and it just worked. Of course it's better to use the pack in when you want the mic close to your face, but if other noise isn't an issue, it's convenient. Works better when you're using a headset for audio, but I imagine even people getting it through their TV might find a use for it.

Was not expecting that at all.

So you mean a house without kids and a dog that run in and out or are playing with toys on the floor nearby. Perfect for the bachelor pad.

Sounds good. I play games in my room mostly so would never have a noise issue. But the included heatset looks really nice so best of both.

Or people who play in a bedroom, or for the times when no one is home. The only reason why I even tried to use it that way is because no one is home, and it worked great.

Just another option that can work.

I've been using voice pretty reliably for over a year with Kinect 1.0 and I have a five year old son and two Jack Russel Terriers. I've also used it during several semi-noisy parties. The only thing that's ever messed with it is placing it too close to my surround sound's center speaker.

To be honest though, you're not really the one experiencing that problem if you're using the mic. It's the people you're playing with that hear all the background noise.

I have not had a problem with Kinects sending background sounds and house noises at me. The problem is they made a device with a microphone and then told people to place them in front of their televisions. Where the game sound comes out.

It would be like setting up your laptop on the living room table and using Skype to talk to someone. It is "perfectly viable" but more often than not you pick up the laptop and move to another area if others are watching tv or playing or whatever.