I think they might just be moving to being a service and offloading the hardware to some kind of ‘second-party’ arrangement where MS won’t manufacture an ‘xbox’ again, but ASUS or Razer or something will make various tiers of standardised ‘xbox’ devices and handhelds
I reckon they’ll keep the studios and even still have some timed and some full exclusives, which will keep game pass chugging. But maybe the days of the actual xbox console are over?
surely the have to keep making the controller though, it’s the highest quality one with direct PC support (and therefore support for any new device strategy). if they kill off the controller, it’s joever
I bought an 8bitdo controller since it had hall-effect sticks and USB-C cabling, and was like $20; the shape isn’t quite as nice as the Xbox controller but it seems well made. There’s some weirdness in my super-corner-case scenario though. (GoG release Breath of Fire IV through Proton doesn’t map the controls correctly)
It’s surprising that premium controllers have sort of stagnated. Outside of fightsticks, most third party controllers still carry the baggage of MadCatz and $10 throwaways that say “P4” or “Xobx” on the box.
Keyboards and mice have gone from $10 packins to near-Veblen goods with $100+ choices, surely some manufacturers want that for controllers too.
8bitdo’s Ultimate controller line is probably the best I’ve ever used, and it slays me that those have Hall effect sticks when the ones sold by the multibillion dollar console manufacturers at twice the price don’t
I think they might just be moving to being a service and offloading the hardware to some kind of ‘second-party’ arrangement where MS won’t manufacture an ‘xbox’ again, but ASUS or Razer or something will make various tiers of standardised ‘xbox’ devices and handhelds
I reckon they’ll keep the studios and even still have some timed and some full exclusives, which will keep game pass chugging. But maybe the days of the actual xbox console are over?
surely the have to keep making the controller though, it’s the highest quality one with direct PC support (and therefore support for any new device strategy). if they kill off the controller, it’s joever
I bought an 8bitdo controller since it had hall-effect sticks and USB-C cabling, and was like $20; the shape isn’t quite as nice as the Xbox controller but it seems well made. There’s some weirdness in my super-corner-case scenario though. (GoG release Breath of Fire IV through Proton doesn’t map the controls correctly)
It’s surprising that premium controllers have sort of stagnated. Outside of fightsticks, most third party controllers still carry the baggage of MadCatz and $10 throwaways that say “P4” or “Xobx” on the box.
Keyboards and mice have gone from $10 packins to near-Veblen goods with $100+ choices, surely some manufacturers want that for controllers too.
8bitdo’s Ultimate controller line is probably the best I’ve ever used, and it slays me that those have Hall effect sticks when the ones sold by the multibillion dollar console manufacturers at twice the price don’t
Yep, compatibility layers can be real pains. Count yourself lucky all that’s broken is controller mapping.