The company that revived the Xbox ‘Duke’ is now bringing back the Xbox 360 controller
The peripheral manufacturer responsible for bringing back the Xbox ‘Duke’ controller is now doing the same with the Xbox 360 controller.
Hyperkin is working on the Xenon, an officially licensed replica of the controller that was originally included with the Xbox 360 when it launched in 2005.
The Xenon, which doesn’t yet have a release date or price, will be compatible with Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PC.
It will also be available in four colours: white, black, pink and red.
Because it’s being created with the Xbox Series X/S in mind, the Xenon isn’t a perfect facsimile of the Xbox 360 controller, since some modifications are required.
The Start and Back buttons have now been replaced with the Menu and View buttons seen on a modern Xbox Series X/S controller.
A Share button has also been included in the middle of the controller, ensuring it doesn’t offer less functionality than a standard Series X/S controller.
Each Xenon controller also has a 3.5mm headset jack and is powered by a USB-C cable.
The controller name comes from the Microsoft XCPU, the CPU used in the Xbox 360 console, which was codenamed Xenon.
In 2018, Hyperkin released an officially licensed replica of the ‘Duke’, the original Xbox controller which was infamous for being rather large.
Although the controller was heavily criticised at the time, its designer Seamus Blackley contacted Xbox head Phil Spencer a decade and a half later and pitched an idea to bring it back, to which Spencer agreed.
The re-released Duke also saw some button tweaks to make it more compatible with the Xbox One, and also had an OLED screen in the middle which showed the Xbox boot-up animation when the controller was switched on.
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