Microsoft’s new Xbox controller borrows great ideas from Stadia, Steam, and Sony
By Sean Hollister, a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.
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New Xbox for 2024! New hybrid Xbox for 2028! But can we just appreciate Microsoft’s leaked Sebile controller for a sec?
The $70 pad could arrive in 2024 chock-full of the best parts of Sony’s DualSense, Valve’s Steam Controller, Google Stadia, and — here’s hoping — 8BitDo.
Obviously, it’s taking the Sony DualSense’s “precision haptic feedback.”
Right, here’s hoping! It’s the thing I’m most excited about because it seriously does add a new dimension to some of Sony’s games, which just aren’t the same when you take it away.
Check out our DualSense X-ray below, versus this one of an Xbox pad, to see the difference in their haptic motors:
Note that some controllers have shipped with “precision” or “HD haptics” that didn’t have the impact, even if they technically featured linear actuators instead of old-school eccentric spinning weights like Xbox gamepads still do today. The Steam Controller had pretty iffy haptics, and the Nintendo Switch haptics aren’t DualSense-level...
What’s the good Steam Controller feature, then?
Would you believe Microsoft’s “haptics double as speakers” has already been done? This always makes me LOL:
The Steam Controller could genuinely do that. Heck, the Taptic Engine in your iPhone can technically do it, too.
But I’m also really hoping Microsoft puts a gyroscope in this thing, not just an accelerometer, so we can have the same gyro aiming revolution I’m experiencing on my Steam Deck and with Zelda on Switch. It’s so good for
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