Xbox Is Ringing In Spring With This Snazzy New Controller Collection

@Kooky_Daisuke There will be little incentive for devs to implement features for a controller that will be used by a tiny minority. Can’t see MS doing it until at least the next generation where bundled controllers have the tech so all players can take advantage.

@rjc-32 Sure for Haptics but Gyro controls are sort of becoming the norm and those are weird for MS not to have an officially endorsed product with them.

Ooo a Pink 8-Bit Do….

Those are all pretty ugly

The fact that the Otterbox controller shell is more expensive than a wired controller itself goes to show it may be a tad bit overpriced

I like the funky pastel colours, and could be good if I'm ever in the market for a spare.

I wish PowerA had a better feel to their dpad.
True fightpads aren't available at offline retailers and waiting for shipping when one goes bad is not optimal.

...plus, I dig the pastels.

@Kooky_Daisuke Xbox absolutely needs gyros, and it's kind of sad they didn't put gyros on the Series controller. They really need to refresh the controllers and add that.

Dual sense haptics, though? No thanks. The haptic triggers are more annoying than anything else. Fun gimmick at times, but it gets very tiring, very fast. Spiderman is the standout. The resistance on the trigger is an amusing gimmick the first hour, and a sure way to start the path to arthritis by the 5th. Ratchet and Returnal use it well with the half-trigger pull, it adds an extra button. Not sure it SHOULD, but it does. Returnal uses it very well, Ratchet uses it as a gimmick (how often do you use the half-pull on anything but the ricochet ball? And that one gets REALLY painful (physically) to max the omega version of due to the trigger haptics. It's a chore, and physically painful, not fun.

I love the idea, but there's really only so much you can do with it, and I don't really think it justifies the expense. Sure, trigger feedback can be nice, but Xbox has had force feedback triggers/trigger rumble since X1 already so it's much of the way there.

"HD Rumble" and "Dual Sense" whatever they call it, it's cool, it's higher detail than "old" rumble, but honestly the brain doesn't notice it. You pick up Returnal or something and it's like "oh, cool, that feels really immersive" for 15 minutes, then after that you're just playing the game and no longer notice anything special about the rumble, and I don't notice it's gone when I'm on XB, either. Rumble itself is important, but the fidelity of the rumble, not so much. The brain only focuses on one or two things, and the details like that get lost.

I think the Xbox controller is just fine, with the exception of the gyros that is, IMO, a critical weakness that needs to be fixed since it actually limits real gameplay input options that are now becoming standard elsewhere.

for the love of all that is good and right about gaming. why in the Sam hells would i want to spend good hard-earned money. on these pastel putrid nightmarish wired controllers

Ick, looks kinda ugly.

@Medic_Alert Same, Notice no particular gain with the PS5-controller over the XsX-controller… I find the rumbling distracting, it makes weird noises like click/clack when the feedback is initiated (I primarily play when my family sleeps) and the draining of the battery so that I need to recharge it, almost daily? Sigh. I play with a headset that chugs energy (AKG K550's I cut the cord of, currently using off-shelf mic-boom but I'm close to finishing my own, just have to solder it up)… used with a PS4-controller it has to negate the power available to the mic, so that's good at least with PS5's… My Ps-friends thought I had bought a new set… but in all I consider XsX sticking to AA-batteries and tried-and-true components in general (I have a charger under my desk, it's really no biggie to charge them every few weeks) a stroke of genius. My PS4-controller don't hold charge nowadays so I'm evaluating 3rd party batteries (don't mind soldering, but it's neater to just switch batteries). I also notice worse audio through the 3,5mm-port on the PS5-controller compared to my XsX, but that might be due to having an Atmos-license for Xb and no choice of adding that to PS5… It's fine for casual games like Elden Ring , but it's weird switching platforms playing Warzone, it's so inferior on PS5… I'm having trouble hearing where the opponent is, it renders at ~900p (I have a color correct-1080p monitor, on XsX I can cheat the system into rendering closer to 4K which then gets downscaled resulting in "natural crisp anti-aliasing")… but hey, I don't have to compete against TTV-streamers at least so it evens out Gyro would be nice on XsX|S, but I've yet to find a use for it on PS5, playing NSw or Wii I use it all the time. Admittedly Wii hasn't been played in about a year, but most other consoles get their rotation My test-squad (9 & 4 y/o) don't mind, they like all of my consoles but usually gravitate to Xb due to having more games for it (Game Pass FTW! I would never buy Paw Patrol or similar). I like the design of the Dualsense though, I primarily play 3D titles so the sticks fatigue me (a dream controller would have sticks where action buttons/D-pad are), but in all it's great upgrade over the DualShocks before… just not better than the refined fit of the Xb-controller for me… I strayed of topic… I plan on buying the three variants of the 8BitDo-controller, I have 5 of their earlier outings (and love them) and being able to fight drift later on? I'm so on. Mapping is secondary. Mine will be white (like most other HID's I use) so that I get reminded to clean them, my son will have the black cause his hands are always dirty and I've given up… and my daughter's Minecraft Pig-controller has seen better days, I had to glue the rubber back on one stick, she'll have the pink one.

@Kooky_Daisuke The Xbox rumble is not standard and there are motors in the triggers as well, very well used by games like the Forza series. The resistance of the DualSense triggers have more haters than lovers as far as I know. The "HD" rumble of Switch and PS5 is good in theory but how many games really use it properly? And how long do you notice? Gyroscope yes, it's not essential but it should be included. The next Xbox controller will probably be similar but include gyroscope. As an option or fine-tuning like on 3DS is good. As a gimmick like in some PS4 games is not as good.

I can't ignore the convenience of removable batteries and how great battery life is on Xbox compared to PS4 and PS5 and even the Elite Controller Series 2 built-in battery seems to last forever.

@Kooky_Daisuke having adaptive triggers and "hd rumble" would be cool, but I won't sacrifice the xbox controllers' excellent ergonomics for those features. MS would have to figure out a way to cram them into the controller without affecting its shape.