The effort to squash unlicensed controllers hurts plenty of paying customers, and might not even achieve its goals
What a horrible decision all around.
- Generates e-waste as controllers are bricked for no reason.
- Kills costly custom built accessibility controllers. No consideration for marginalized users whatsoever.
- Retroactively screws all customers over.
- Goes as far as breaking peripheral compatibility with a discontinued console.
Is it to kill cheating devices used on competitive titles? Is it a money grab? It probably won’t achieve either. From a customer protection standpoint I’m wondering if this position can be attacked legally.
Nevertheless it reminds me that other time when Spencer was daydreaming about buying Nintendo and it feels like Microsoft is being a little unhinged as of late.
Microsoft needs to seriously work on quality control of their own controllers… cynics might say they are built to fail
when will the industry learn that noone wants propriety hardware or software
Just as soon as it becomes profitable to care about what the consumer wants.
Well, what little interest I had for this console is now gone. Are they trying to pull another windows phone type move here?
If it weren’t for all the self-defeat, MS would be doing much better, I think.
Windows is trying to both maintain backwards compatibility and lock-in. That’s pretty hard at the best of times, moreso when you didn’t initially have lock-in. If I can get my games working on Linux (i hear it’spossible, but I need time), the only reason I’ll have to use Windows will be work-related.
My new job has me doing a lot with Linux. Might be the push I need to just pull the trigger. Certainly the OS is cheaper.
@Quexotic @GreyEyedGhost for what it’s worth I’ve been working on Linux servers professionally for 15 years and I use a windows desktop and an osx laptop both personally and for work. I can’t think of a particular advantage a Linux client environment would give you. The last thing I want to do in either place is extra work making my local environment functional.
Me too, but as much time as I’d spend decrapifying windows, I could spend learning Linux
Because clearly, we think things through before we do them
I despise this decision. I should be able to tailor my experience to my liking, especially since I don’t play games online. What’s the harm in letting me have a joypad with six buttons on the front? It’s literally what Capcom fighting games are designed to use. Why can’t I have a D-pad that works well with fighting games? The Xbox Series controller is better than last generation’s joypad (and much better than the generation before that), but for some of us, it’s still not good enough.
Also, it’s unlikely that 8bitdo will buy a license to make controllers for the Xbox. It’s the least popular console of this generation. You’re charging for the right to make controllers for a game system that’s well behind its competitors. Why do that when you can make controllers for the Switch or the PC, where you can sell more product at a lower cost? It’s just… stupid.
8bitdo (and the other major 3rd party controller makers) have a license. Their controllers are even advertised on Microsoft’s site - e.g. https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories/mobile-gaming/sn30-pro
[Edit: @[email protected] points out correctly that this controller does not with with Xbox - it’s for mobile. Oops. There are some that do though - see later replies!]
That controller doesn’t actually work with an Xbox Series though, right? It’s for cloud gaming.
Ugh, you’re right, Way to undermine my own point! There are no official third party wireless controllers.
8BitDo do make licensed controllers that work with Xbox though - for example: https://www.8bitdo.com/pro2-wired-controller-for-xbox/ and https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories/controllers/ultimate-wired-controller-for-xbox
[Edit: and there are a bunch of wired third party controllers on Microsoft’s store from other manufacturers: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories?xr=shellnav]
