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Microsoft Announces Customizable Xbox Elite Wireless Controller
MojoKid writes: Today, Microsoft announced that later this year, it will be releasing what could be the "ultimate" Xbox and Windows game controller. Called Xbox Elite Wireless, this gamepad has a dramatically overhauled D-pad and four paddles underneath. Other features that make this gamepad special: there are trigger locks, the ability to customize thumbstick sensitivity, along with the level of travel for the top triggers. In addition, it also sports swappable components, like the paddles, etc. Pricing has been announced at $149 and given just how advanced this gamepad is over the original, it's understandable but still pretty steep.
As a casual gamer, I have maybe two or three hours per week to play games. I don't want to spend all of that time trying to figure out a goddamn 30-button controller! At least with a PC keyboard I can use it for many other things than playing games, including typing this very comment. But with modern console controllers all they can do is control games, and nothing else. Playing games using one of these controllers is just a time investment that I can't afford to make!
The controller is probably the one thing more than anything else that prevents me from having an interest in the XBOne, just like the 360 & XBox before them. The PS controllers have always seemed more comfortable to me due to their symmetry.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
It still bothers me spending more than $30 for any controller other than a fighting stick. This one is ridiculous.
You're aware there's a wireless adapter for Xbox 360/One gamepads for Windows, right?
Wow, unless they use leaf switches, those sound like really crappy buttons. You should really think about switching to Cherry-brand microswitches.
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You're aware there's a wireless adapter for Xbox 360/One gamepads for Windows, right?
Yes, that's just what I need, another proprietary wireless communications dongle that exists only because Microsoft wanted to be proprietary. Now I see the error of my ways, and I love Microsoft! You have truly shown me the light, you obtuse ass.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
When it comes to wireless keyboards, mice, and controllers those proprietary dongles make Bluetooth their bitch. Bluetooth (what other non proprietary wireless connection would you use) sucks for anything that requires low latency. No wait, Bluetooth pretty much sucks for anything.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I have a Bluetooth mouse. It loses connection and isn't brilliant but you could use it for casual word-processing or similar use.
I have a Bluetooth keyboard. It works okay.
I work in a school. Put ten of them in a room and it all falls apart. If they aren't directly interfering the hassle of getting one and only one to join on to one and only one computer is a pain in the butt. Windows isn't particularly great at this, even on 8.
But at home I have four wireless XBox 360 controllers on a cheap dongle thing I bought from Amazon. Works perfectly, don't need to set anything up, recognised by all games, if one goes to sleep, you press a button and carry on.
Bluetooth isn't perfect and probably not good for this kind of thing. Wireless is even worse as you then have a controller-over-IP situation. There is no real alternative.
Also, go buy a bluetooth PC keyboard/mouse compared to the cheapest of "other wireless" sets. You'll pay more. I can only presume that this is patent or similar licensing. There are also a lot fewer models of such things because the cheap wireless stuff just works. You don't need to know the ins-and-outs of a protocol like the XBox controllers. You can pick up cheap dongles and controllers that are compatible for next to nothing, so it's not hard to work out and not "secret".
cool, name another controller that provides an open source driver, every single controller is only supported at all because someone (most likely unpaid) bothered to write one. there's no difference between a proprietary wired controller and a proprietary wireless controller. i know from experience the bluetooth driver for ps3 controllers is a pain in the arse.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
I understand this controller isn't meant for casual players, but I think this is an example of choosing complexity over usability. If I'm trying to get more gamers to play Xbox One, I would invest in technologies that will allow normal players to enjoy a game as much as pro players rather than invest in technologies that widens the gap between pro players and normal players. There are far more normal gamers than "pro" gamers.
Take Splatoon for instance. It took a genre that is reserved for hardcore brogamers and made it accessible and fun for everyone - including brogamers. They didn't do it by making the game complex nor did they do it by making a dumbed down game. Nintendo achieved its goals by encapsulating the complexities of a shooter in a way that is intuitive for everyone. As engineers, that's what we should all be striving for.
https://scufgaming.com/
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
I was looking at this and Hololens and was kind of excited. I'm not a fan of Microsoft, but hey, they're putting out some cool stuff.
Then I found out for your $150, they're not giving you a play and charge battery.
Bollocks. What the fuck Microsoft? At least it's controllable over USB now.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Bluetooth works pretty well, never had a problem with it. I have 2 controllers, keyboard and a mouse, no latency issues ever. If you're working on a console, latency doesn't matter anyway. You won't get much over 30fps anyway which gives the controller a decent 30ms to respond.
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"The controller is seen as a huge improvement. In FPS playtesting, test subiects using this controller had their butts handed to them by a mouser in 2.8 seconds, compared to 1.3 seconds with the old controller."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
When it comes to wireless keyboards, mice, and controllers those proprietary dongles make Bluetooth their bitch.
Oh yeah, that's why the input latency on the PS3 and PS4 are so massive. Wait, they aren't. While some titles on PS4 do have more input lag than the Xbox, it's not because of Bluetooth. We know because it's only some titles.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Please bring back the Microsoft Sidewinder, as that was the best game controller ever made.
Microsoft advertises windows support for their xbone controllers. They sell a cable for the explicit purpose of using with your Windows PC.
And when it breaks after just a couple days, you're screwed.
They refuse to honor the warranty if you don't also own an xbone.
"Note You must register your Xbox One console to replace a wireless controller thatâ(TM)s under warranty."
Seems like a flagrant violation of Magnuson-Moss to me.
I have a bluetooth keyboard which works beautifully w/ my Winbook and Android tablets, as well as my Android phone. Only thing it struggles w/ every time - when it has to service the iPad or iPhone.
Some of the most damning evidence against Bluetooth peripherals is that Logitech avoids it whenever it can. All of my Logitech gear has either a unifying USB plug or a custom one.
Good-bye
As far as the natural/neutral positioning of your hands is concerned... The Wii Pro Stick is by far the most comfortable controller to hold, it also has the least amount of "thumb-travel" to switch from the Control Sticks to the D-Pad or Buttons.
Even with fairly large (long) hands, the bulkier/larger bodied controllers aren't any more comfortable.
At least the XBox Elite solves one problem that nearly all game-pads have -- half of your fingers are underneath the controller body, and are not needed to hold/support the controller --- a well designed controller will comfortably est on the bottom and sides of your palms, which leaves your fingers nothing to do at all.
What the XBox Elite doesn't solve is a console control-scheme problem --- the complete inability to use a button/key press as a modifier key... along with console games that assign disparate actions to the same button in a different context, instead of considering the flexibility of a modifier key.
i know from experience the bluetooth driver for ps3 controllers is a pain in the arse.
Yes, I agree with you, that's annoying. However, it's at least possible to use it with no special hardware if your hardware is any good. Or, to get the special hardware for very little money; all you need for PS3 controller support is a Bluetooth 2.1+EDR dongle, which is both extremely inexpensive and capable of providing for functions other than operating controllers. They're dandy for use with headsets, for example.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you assign Ctrl, and Shift to the two thumb buttons, then you get 4 states for each of the 3 standard mouse buttons --- without reaching for a keyboard yet.
Instead of a 5 button mouse, you have 9 additional states that you can use above and beyond the normal three L/M/R clicks.
>You have truly shown me the light, you obtuse ass.
It's funny that you don't realize that you're the clueless ass. Slashderp is mostly stupid people these days.
How about recognizing that if a product isn't perfect, that criticism is valid? That handwave doesn't work.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Of course the regular Xb1 controller also does USB. But not including the play and charge battery block is just a jerk move. Especially for a controller that costs 150 bones.
Wireless play and charge kit for the 360 didn't support Usb control btw. You needed a dingus that plugged in via USB for *any* wireless controller. The Xbox's controller didn't have a standard USB dingus at the end. That thing is a third party hack.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
It cannot be the ultimate PC game controller, because it does not have bluetooth support. Modern bluetooth has a low-latency mode which is totally suitable for game controllers, but Microsoft not only didn't use it, this is the second proprietary protocol they've used.
Who cares? It's the protocol that encodes your button presses between the controller and the receiver and it's not exactly that difficult to figure out, there's even Linux support for it. What's the actual problem you've got here that you can't solve?
The whole system is just a big "fuck you" to the players
Yes a $10 receiver is such a big "fuck you", look at everybody up in arms about it!
They are incompatible with PC unless you use a sketchy, 3rd party, reverse-engineered driver that constantly phones home.
you mean "incompatible with Windows", PS3 controllers work just fine on Linux. I take it the sketchy driver you're referring to is the MotionJoy one?
i know from experience the bluetooth driver for ps3 controllers is a pain in the arse.
It's a pain for Windows users, Linux users don't have that problem.
i've used the bluetooth drivers on windows and linux, they're both terrible, if you use the scpserver xinput wrapper on windows it's marginally better than the linux one
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.