There’s a lot of angst expressed in words too vile for these forums against racers in the lobbies who insist on bringing their entire noisy family to the lobby, either intentionally out of sheer ignorance. I know it took me some time when I first started racing live in multiplayer mode to figure out that my Kinect was telegraphing my race room conversations to the world –YIKES!!! So to help those who are not aware of this, you can actually MUTE those annoying racers who insist on too much chatting or who make annoying background sounds during races and it’s quite simple.
In the lobby select the game tag with the microphone blinking, select View Gamer Profile and then select Mute – it toggles to a permanent Mute (Unmute) until you decide to remove the mute. Once muted, you can again Unmute right from the lobby.
Some folks wait until pre-race splash screens to talk their crap or make silly noises because they know their game tag is not displayed during race set up, however, during the race you can make note by game tag of the person speaking and then mute them from the lobby during intermission.
Note: The option is only available during the Intermission, not while still waiting for people to come back into the lobby from the previous race (when they have chequered-flag icons next to gamertags) and not during the final launch countdown.
Only problem I have with that, is games like destiny when playing with friends and they have someone you aren’t friends with and you’re in a pvp match or a raid and need to hear them but don’t want to add them. (and NAT compatibility prevents party chat from working properly)