Xbox One video discusses 40 controller improvements
Xbox One owners are going to spend an awful lot of time holding a controller--even if mandatory Kinect means You Are Always The Controller, Pal--so it's a pretty important hunk of plastic. Microsoft has a good hard look at the One's revamped controller in a new video, looking at what's new since the Xbox 360.
Xbox One owners are going to spend an awful lot of time holding a controller--even if mandatory Kinect means You Are Always The Controller, Pal--so it's a pretty important hunk of plastic. Microsoft has a good hard look at the One's revamped controller in a new video, looking at what's new since the Xbox 360.
The seven-minute video (via Polygon) sees Larry 'Major Nelson' Hryb and Xbox accessories general manager Zulfi Alam chatting about the 40 improvements it supposedly offers, and having a little peek inside. The pair gasbag about its reworked D-pad, hand-friendly screwless casing, tweaked thumbsticks, trigger haptic feedback, supporting both wired and wireless, and plenty more.
"Hundreds and hundreds of tests were done with thousands and thousands of users to make sure that core gamers, when they touch this controller, it feels familiar, should feel like it's from the same family," Alam said, "you should have the best of the old one, and in addition you have additional functionality."
Xbox One includes a controller in the box, but additional ones will go for $60 each. There's other accessories you can pick up, as well. You can use standard AA batteries for about 40 hours of play, but if you'd like a rechargeable option, there's the Play & Charge kit, which lasts for about 30 hours with each charge.
-
Shacknews
replyAlice O'Connor posted a new article, Xbox One video discusses 40 controller improvements.
Xbox One owners are going to spend an awful lot of time holding a controller--even if mandatory Kinect means You Are Always The Controller, Pal--so it's a pretty important hunk of plastic. Microsoft has a good hard look at the One's revamped controller in a new video, looking at what's new since the Xbox 360.-
-
[deleted]
-
-
-
you severely underestimate how much technology is in modern controllers
-
-
ok, but will the D-Pad finally be worth something for fighting games? .............
-
from the video, it looks improved. there should be a more tactile feel of "click" when you press a direction.
-
[deleted]
-
This rumor is complete bs. The patent expired years and years ago. That has nothing to do with it.
-
the 360 came out before the patent expired
-
I will give Sega, they had an interesting way around it with the Dreamcast (it was mounted and setup differently but to the same effect).
-
-
the patent expired in August and the console came out in November. That's not enough time to prototype, tool, and build hundreds of thousands of updated controllers.
Not to mention the system was playable at E3 that year, months before the patent expired.
-
-
-
-
-
-
I want to know how its WiFi works. Do I need a dongle ton use it on the PC? My first understanding is it uses a variant of WiFi.
-
you can just plug in with USB on PC
-
USB means little for people playing on PC at couch distances, unless they have and like using real long cords. It's fine for people like me who do most of their gaming at a desk. But even with my PS3 pad, I end up using it wirelessly over bluetooth more than wired via usb because it's not nearly as annoying.
-
-
Well, Sailor is one of those people, and there are a lot of those folks here and elsewhere who are curious about the wireless functionality on PC. I honestly don't know why it really matters when everyone probably already has a wireless controller that's good enough. Well maybe not platformers because of the crummy d-pad on the 360 (if they don't have a ds3 and compatible bt receiver), but for most other uses.
And you jest, but early on Microsoft did sell the 360 wireless receiver for PC separately for $20, but for years now the only way to properly get the official one is with a $50 360 controller for windows bundle. Which is still a good deal, but not desirable if you already have the controller(s). Since the Xbox One's pad is using some sort of wifi connection, it will be interesting to see if people hack their own support for it, or maybe you just need some official drivers for it to work natively with any wi-fi direct device.
I think he's wondering if it will require a proprietary dongle like the 360 at all, but no one is really talking about that yet. Will just have to wait and see, but from the specs, I don't think it will. But they may still sell their own branded Xbox One for PC wi-fi direct receiver eventually.
-
-
-
-
-
One of the points they make about the improved controller is a reduced dead zone, should that be a concern?
With the current 360 wireless pads, I had to return a bunch of controllers because the dead zone wasn't large enough and they would drift automatically in a direction when untouched and in a neutral position. Searching around it seems like a pretty widespread issue as well, bad enough to lead me to believe they should include a system wide dead zone option in the console settings.
The analog sticks are going to be improved in every aspect so hopefully it's not a an issue on the new one, but with the quality control in the past as an indicator it really could go either way?-
-
-
Yeah, I had a couple controllers over the lifespan of my console which were the same way. One was particularly bad because while most of the time I could give the stick a flick and sort it out, this one always creeped down to the left. (Like my junk)
One thing I noticed on the new one which they did to the SE controller on the 360 as well, is the removal of the 4 little bumps on the top of the sticks. I always liked those in the classic 360 controllers because they felt like I had just a little more grip on them. However, these new ones look to be more concave so it may not be an issue at all.
-
-
-
-
Why do they still put the left thumbstick up high and the right thumbstick down low? One of the two positions has to be more ergonomic, so why aren't they both in that position? This seems like a clear win on the PS controller.
-
I've wondered this too, I've always guessed that the default position is assumed to be left thumb on the stick, right thumb on the face buttons. D-pad and right stick being the secondary positions for both.
Obviously this would suck for the types of games where analog movement is the primary position, but I don't think that's the common use. -
-
I'm terrible with twin-stick games, but I do far better when they're on the same horizontal plane. I kinda hate both PS3 and 360 controller designs, but I'll have to see what I think of the PS4 controller's design, since Patrick Klepek said he tried it and liked it a lot better than PS3.
-
-
[deleted]
-
[deleted]
-
Honestly I think the Wii U Pro controller does it best. It's my current favorite traditional controller, and I've got a dongle to use a couple on my PC.
http://www.amazon.com/Nintendo-Wii-U-Pro-Controller-Black/dp/B009AFLXQQ/ -
i'm sure there are studies on this, and thousands of hours of testing, but it just feels correct to me.
because the D-pad is below the left thumbstick, and my left thumb is moving from the thumbstick to the d-pad below. in a vertical fashion. whereas the face buttons are level with the right thumbstick, because you're going horizontally to and from the stick to the buttons. imagine if it were two separate controllers like the wii nunchuck and remote.-
I always just assumed it was some dumb patent bullshit.
-
-
-
