Microsoft’s new Xbox controller borrows nice concepts from Stadia, Steam, and Sony

New Xbox for 2024! New hybrid Xbox for 2028! However can we simply admire Microsoft’s leaked Sebile controller for a sec?

The $70 pad might arrive in 2024 chock-full of the perfect components of Sony’s DualSense, Valve’s Steam Controller, Google Stadia, and — right here’s hoping — 8BitDo.

Clearly, it’s taking the Sony DualSense’s “precision haptic suggestions.”

Proper, right here’s hoping! It’s the factor I’m most enthusiastic about as a result of it significantly does add a brand new dimension to a few of Sony’s video games, which simply aren’t the identical if you take it away.

Try our DualSense X-ray under, versus this one in every of an Xbox pad, to see the distinction of their haptic motors:

Be aware that some controllers have shipped with “precision” or “HD haptics” that didn’t have the impression, even when they technically featured linear actuators as an alternative of old-school eccentric spinning weights like Xbox gamepads nonetheless do at this time. The Steam Controller had fairly iffy haptics, and the Nintendo Change haptics aren’t DualSense-level…

What’s the nice Steam Controller characteristic, then?

Would you imagine Microsoft’s “haptics double as audio system” has already been executed? This at all times makes me LOL:

The Steam Controller might genuinely do this. Heck, the Taptic Engine in your iPhone can technically do it, too.

However I’m additionally actually hoping Microsoft places a gyroscope on this factor, not simply an accelerometer, so we are able to have the identical gyro aiming revolution I’m experiencing on my Steam Deck and with Zelda on Change. It’s so good for aiming bows.

What good might presumably have come from Google’s Stadia controller?

It’s the rationale Sebile is such an enormous deal. Microsoft was internally positioning it as its first “Common Wi-fi Controller,” theoretically able to controlling Xbox throughout console, cell, PC, and cloud.

The controller can do this as a result of it connects on to the cloud, paperwork present, along with Bluetooth and Xbox Wi-fi. Google Stadia pioneered direct-to-cloud by connecting the controller on to your house Wi-Fi, and it let me seamlessly transfer between taking part in a recreation on my PC, TV, and cellphone. Right here’s one thing I wrote in 2019 about Stadia and Future 2:

I fired up a session on the TV with the Stadia Controller whereas we have been simply blasting tiny minions, swapped to a desktop with a mouse and keyboard once I wanted higher intention for a boss struggle, and seamlessly resumed the sport on a smartphone earlier than strolling down the corridor to seize a snack — all whereas taking part in with a colleague 5,000-plus miles away in London — with none main hitches. 

Amazon’s Luna controller additionally had a direct-to-cloud connection, however… no one actually talks about Luna anymore.

Okay, I’m studying between the strains right here approach an excessive amount of and am able to be underwhelmed, however Sebile has three pleasant concepts that catch my eye:

• A “rechargeable & swappable battery”
• “New modular thumbsticks” with “improved longevity”
• “Seamless Pair & Change” throughout a number of paired units

First, Sony followers and Xbox followers have lengthy argued over the deserves of Sony’s short-lived however rechargeable inside lithium-ion pack versus Microsoft’s slot for traditional AA batteries… however controller specialist 8BitDo delightfully mentioned “Why not each?”

Sure, you’re taking a look at a 2x AA-sized rechargeable battery pack that may keep inside your 8BitDo controller, charging over its USB-C port — and if it ever runs out mid-session, AA batteries work high quality, too.

Second, lots of 8BitDo’s controllers have a neat sliding change on the again that allows you to swap between 4 paired units over Bluetooth — one click on to go from Nintendo Change to iPhone or PC. Appears like Microsoft may do this with an app, although.

Third, whereas 8BitDo’s Final Bluetooth Controller sadly doesn’t include that fashion of battery or that four-position, it does include Gulikit Corridor impact sensor joysticks that ought to hopefully get rid of stick drift — at a time when each Sony and Microsoft are utilizing the identical actual drift-prone joysticks.

Carry-to-wake presence detection might be an enormous deal for battery life! Former Polygon editor-in-chief (and present writer) Chris Grant tells me Xbox One controllers appeared to final endlessly if you happen to had a Microsoft Kinect arrange — because the digicam dealt with that presence detection position.

How seemingly is any of this?

Microsoft’s leaked paperwork present Sebile isn’t some pie-in-the-sky challenge — it was already funded as of Might 2022. The leaked slide deck suggests that is the new Xbox controller, set to reach Might 2024 for $70 and bundled with each new Xbox offered beginning subsequent fall.

It’s not the one new controller that was in discussions, with one other model codenamed “Igraine,” a brand new Elite controller dubbed “Actium,” and a brand new luxurious controller dubbed “Zarasai.”

However the final two had but to realize inside funding, and Microsoft’s inside paperwork additionally cautioned that the “Sebile full product imaginative and prescient” was “not at present accredited,” laying out situations the place a pared-down controller would ship as an alternative.

By the best way, Sebile and Igraine would supposedly ship with a pack-in accent of some type known as “Bonnie” or “Bonnie Professional.” Is that the title of the rechargeable battery? A carrying case? An interchangeable stick or stick topper? Your guess is nearly as good as ours.