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Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"
- nailer 3y agoUnsigned third party controllers. Ie controllers that haven’t passed Microsoft’s certification program. There is a massive difference.
- thot_experiment 3y agoDamn, won't be able to give my little bro the MadCatz every time. What's the world coming to? Seriously though, this is awful. Hopefully we see more regulation of this sort of thing EU usb-c/removable battery style. I mean ideally we'd be breaking these companies up, but regulating them is a good step.
- jspaetzel 3y agoThey'll still work fine. MadCatz is licensed. There are tons of licensed accessory vendors for Xbox.
- flipdot 3y agoDoes this mean the end of custom accessibility controllers?
- gretch 3y agoSounds like it will be the end of 3P accessibility controllers yes. Xbox has invested extensively in their 1P solution though: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories/controllers/xbox-adaptive-controller https://www.xbox.com/en-US/accessories/controllers/xbox-adap... It's modular and programmable
- hirvi74 3y agoAnd more importantly, all the money goes to Microsoft.
- Rebelgecko 3y agoI would bet that the Xbox Accessibility controller will never be profitable for Microsoft
- tumult 3y agoIt doesn't have to be profitable for them. It can just exist, be the only option, and prevent others from making a competitive or superior product, forcing others out of the business.
- ryukafalz 3y agoIt would be a shame if someone with a physical disability needed to find a different accessible controller for each platform they play on because each one only supports first-party controllers though. I don't have a disability serious enough to need adaptive controllers like this, but I do have RSI, and when I find peripherals that I can use with minimal pain I stick to them. I have to imagine many with more serious disabilities would feel similarly.
- MenhirMike 3y agoIt does say "unauthorized", so I assume it should still be possible to get an official license to make a third party controller, though we'll have to see if that's actually going to be the case.
- poloniculmov 3y agoThere are "authorized" 3rd party controllers and they claim they'll expand support for wireless devices.
- pests 3y agoThis might be a sad day. Ben Heck has been making accessibility controllers for as long as I've been on the internet and I know the last few videos he's done on those have been based off a third party controller.
- hospitalJail 3y agoIts time to leave M$ completely. Switch to Steam gaming.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bigstrat2003 3y agoIt's disappointing, but not surprising. This is the same console which pioneered charging to play games online, while providing no value, simply because they can get away with it. Locking you into their more expensive controllers is totally on brand for them.
- 0x500x79 3y agoI think that this is a response to the rising usage of the Cronus and/or other controller modification tools that give players advantages (cheats). For example one of these "Mods" for Cronus state that they are: a dynamic, fully-automated Anti-Recoil system that transforms your in-game character into a laser-guided juggernaut we've affectionately dubbed as [BEAM] Battling cheaters in video games is a never-ending chase, but I appreciate that they are attempting something. I wish that a gaming company could figure out a less invasive way to detect these cheaters.
- Waterluvian 3y agoHeuristics that identify inhuman inputs.
- 0x500x79 3y agoThis has always been my thoughts as well, and it seems like they have the data required, but I always think they are worried about some false positive issues. These companies should have the resources to build deployable models for this.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Klonoar 3y agoCheating in games - like web scraping - are both arms races where this only works well to a point. It’s absolutely possible to fake it.
- makeitdouble 3y agoHeuristics in competitive games will always bring their own sets of issues. As it's an arms race, controller tweaks will adjust to be at the borderline of what the system detects, and on the other hand the 0.001% of the most dedicated players that actually beat that borderline will get pushined with a mere "no human can be that good" response, which is the worse outcome when the game's whole point _is_ to be that good.
- einr 3y ago
- Waterluvian 3y agoSome spreadsheet hero who has never played a game in their life is looking for a promotion.
- FFP999 3y ago[dead]
- gnabgib 3y agoAlso: "Xbox's new policy – say goodbye to unofficial accessories from November" (79 points, 79 comments, 17 hours ago)[0], "Xbox is ending support for unauthorized controllers" (3 points) [1], "Microsoft May Drop Support for 'Unauthorized' Xbox Controllers, Accessories" (2 points), "Microsoft Appears to Block Unofficial Third-Party Accessories on Xbox" (1 point)[3], "Microsoft is cracking down on unofficial Xbox gear" (3 points)[4] [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38066858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38066858 [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38065269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38065269 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38070427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38070427 [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38073269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38073269 [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38076461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38076461
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoWhat doublespeak! "Ending support" really means "blocking competitors"?
- hirvi74 3y agoWhat a load of trash. What MSFT is saying is, "We want you all to only buy our controllers." With most games having crossplay, what "console experience" even exists anymore? Making people buy expensive ass controllers so they can be worked by someone with a cheap mouse and keyboard is not the "console experience" people want.
- falcolas 3y agoThe Xbox is a computer. It natively supports keyboards and mice. Just give up on this idea of an anachronistic “console experience” already. It’s just holding players and games back.
- landr0id 3y agoThis is a terrible experience for people who desire to sit on a couch with a controller. People specifically use devices that spoof their keyboard and mouse a controller so they can get in queues with controller players and retain auto aim. Some games allow native keyboard and mouse support, but then they’re queued with KB/mouse players.
- falcolas 3y agoHow hard is it really to have two queues based on your input type? Not to mention, there will always be a huge overlap between ok kb/mouse players and good controller players. This leads me to believe that normal skill based matching would be enough to keep the games interesting and challenging, regardless of which control scheme you decide to use.
- jack1243star 3y ago> How hard is it really to have two queues based on your input type? Basically impossible. Some players will always try to spoof it, either for an advantage or the challenge.
- anonymousab 3y agoIsn't the problem de facto solved by matchmaking? The player that aims better will quickly win more and be elevated to the level of opponents on par with them. From the perspective of the player that loses to them, it's no different than losing to a regular player who aimed really well; you're quickly separated from them in the queue. This wouldn't apply to games with only a few hundred active players but I think most proponents of this change aren't really thinking of those games.
- donatj 3y agoBlocking the Brook adapter is how you lose the entire fighting game community over night. I'll be unable to use the majority of my fight sticks now.
- throwaway49594 3y agoThis has the added bonus of blocking non disposable controllers that use hall effect sensors that don't suffer from stick drift. https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/18/23799149/gamesir-g7-se-xbox-windows-hall-effect-drift-free-controller-price https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/18/23799149/gamesir-g7-se-xb... https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+Fix+Xbox+One+Wireless+Controller+Drift/150208 https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/How+to+Fix+Xbox+One+Wireless+Co...
- __float 3y agoThis controller is labeled "licensed". How do you know it will be blocked by this policy?
- throwaway49594 3y agoIn the same way that Nvidia is going with it's 'founders edition', slowly squeeze out 'partner's.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pierat 3y agoAgain, this should not be news. These "game platforms" (read: desktops whom are sold but never convey ownership), assume anti-enduder at every step of the way. It was surprising MS allowed 3rs party anything at all. This is why we need strong purchase-owner regulations. Cause this shit is a rental at best. Who controls it? The owner (read: Microsoft).
- VincentEvans 3y agoA lot of people locked down game platforms because they just want to have a seamless plug and play experience to play games without drivers, compatibility issues, or cheating. From the couch. On a 60” living room tv. I certainly do, and so my gaming buddies. Every like 5-7 years or so we need to buy a new $400-$500 console. Seems like a good deal to me. We started back in the day on Xbox 360, now are on Xbox One, and sometime soon will migrate to Series X.
- josephcsible 3y agoMaking arbitrary peripherals not work is the opposite of "a seamless plug and play experience".
- pierat 3y agoThe masses are almost always willing to trade rights for 'ease'. It's also how we get to IoT, cloud-tied software and hardware, and all sorts of anti-purchaser tech, to benefit the actual owner. The longer I live, I realize that Stallman was right about tech. All of it.
- VincentEvans 3y agoNon-microsoft peripherals in my gaming universe are used for one purpose - to cheat and to tilt the otherwise perfectly level playing field into cheaters favor. I don’t care for their existence. There’s a ton of other options to play games where non-standard “enhancements” are allowed, along with wall hacks, map hacks, anti-recoil, trigger hacks, etc. You and Stallman can use those. Hopefully they ban mouse and keyboard too. I prefer “my ball” to officially stamped and pumped to the correct pressure.
- hsbauauvhabzb 3y agoWhy not block third party controls in the online components only, even allow a ‘ranked’ that requires authorised hardware. This is a money grab and not anything else, presumably do this now, and start pumping out console exclusives ones the rage has died down.
- redder23 3y agoI was always baffled how M$ actually took over the controller game on PC as well. But this is also pretty greedy and obviously just for the money. Like if people wan to buy some crap that breaks in 30 days they should be, the market should decide. They should also buy some innovative controller from "unauthorized" companies that just work. I mean its great to have a standardized button layout but we pretty much had that even B4 Xbox was were basically forced on every PC gamer. Games and steam also support PS controllers but I read all the time that games are lacking the icons or that they do not work correctly. I recently bought a Turtle Beach controller that has button below that act like stick presses, I think the elite controller have that as well but it was cheaper and has no stupid wireless I do not need. Anyway I really do not like the fact that they have to pay some licensing fees or need to get it officially approve from fucking M$. I remember back in the day were you could actually use any controller in games, I do not think it works like that these days. You need like xbox controller emulator and shit so I just buy them begrudgingly. There would be more innovation like the Steam Controller (just on better, from someone else, never used one but the layout made no sense to me like the buttons below the pad but it was a step in the right direction I think) if M$ would not had this monopoly on their controllers that never really change.
- mdotk 3y agoDupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38076461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38076461
- lawn 3y agoThis is one reason the Steam Deck model of being an open console system is the future. Some dinosaurs wants to preserve the old locked-down console experience, where you have exclusive games, controllers and digital stores. But its just worse for the customer in every way.
- Cthulhu_ 3y agoNot every way; you have more control over quality and experience in a closed system. I mean yeah it sucks, but so does spending money on a controller that isn't good enough. edit: I'm reading somewhere else it's to stop cheat enabled controllers. Wouldn't want to play multiplayer games if someone has an unfair advantage like that.
- _xivi 3y ago> you have more control over quality and experience > I'm reading somewhere else it's to stop cheat enabled controllers No, it's always been about revenue. I never understand why people take company's word and run with it. Are they actually fooled? Of course, the company won't be blunt and say to the consumer: honestly, we force you to buy from us because it make us more money. This is really weird "solution". They likely worked backward. Spotted a market opportunity, then brainstormed plausible justifications. This remind of Apple claiming its anti-repair policy is there to fight theft. Repeat that enough times and you start to believe it.
- ethanbond 3y agoMaybe people don’t like playing video games with cheaters and they do like that their items’ value will plummet to near-zero if they’re stolen. Maybe these are more relevant to most consumers than abstract complaints on Hackernews about “freedom.” Have you considered that?
- kipchak 3y ago>Maybe these are more relevant to most consumers than abstract complaints on Hackernews about “freedom.” It seems like the parent is complaining about people taking business' explanations at face value when there's a likely different motive, not "freedom".
- serf 3y agoThis is a money grab with the polish of a pro-gamer cheat-cleanup. Why do I say that? Microsoft can fix most of the 'cheats' that a software controller can implement in software. Auto-fire is trivial to detect, as is a KBM setup where it doesn't belong. Out of the ordinary joystick characteristics/speed/hysteresis/range would make it obvious to them which controllers are aftermarket if they cared to disallow them after only a few minutes of profiling the player. and the fun point I bring up with regards to this : the determined cheaters will just pin-out a 'qualified authentic' controller to any choice of small prototyping boards and just re-create a 'Cronus-like' device higher up the device chain without detection, and this will continue until Microsoft implements software side detection via some sort of clever profiling scheme.
- RobotToaster 3y agoAnd someone in China will no doubt find a way to make their controllers be detected as official, if they haven't already.
- fishtacos 3y agoNo one in China was able to make a 360 controller bypass Microsoft's digital signature driver controls for their dongle for 18 years now. I think we're past the point of "someone will just hack it". Not going to hack it.
- baby 3y agoSo should they just give up on cheating devices?
- squigz 3y agoWhen it comes at the expense of legitimate user freedom, and is arguably useless? Probably.
- endisneigh 3y agoBuy a gaming pc if you want freedom
- extraduder_ire 3y agoSeems strange that they're doing this mid-generation, rather than when coming out with new controllers/console. Last time I remember this happening was in the middle of the ps3's lifecycle, and I had to return a generic controller because of it.
- qalmakka 3y ago> players have been encountering error “0x82d60002” OT: Microsoft should be banned by decree from showing naked error codes to people, I've been fighting them for decades now
- 0xAFFFF 3y agoThis. Serving cryptic error codes over issues that do have a proper wording is a big no.
- numpad0 3y ago“Using unauthorised accessories compromises your gaming experience. For this reason, the unauthorised accessory will be blocked from use on 11/12/2023,” read the pop-up on the console. It then advised the player to return the product to the store or talk to the manufacturer. It seems the proper wording is displayed along the code, though, just the article elaborates later. If you think the existence of such code itself is the problem, you're just trying to make someone's life needlessly slow and harder.
- smcl 3y agoInteresting how they render the date, there will be players in the UK who will see that and think they can use their controllers until the 11th of December. I don't know why they didn't just use "12th of November, 2023"
- twodave 3y agoThat assumes it renders the same in all locales. Most likely it doesn’t.
- smcl 3y agoEven if they do something locale-specific, Microsoft has a knack for fucking specifically dates up. For me Windows keeps falling back to using the backwards US way even though I keep correcting it to use the international way. I think this is because I prefer the US keyboard layout (I've no need for a GBP sign above the three, hash is much more useful), something causes that to leak out. Also even if they have that nailed, it's still no guarantee. I'm not an Xbox owner but presumably you have a profile with a region (for payments/billing, tax etc) and a selected language. I'd be willing to bet a lot of Brits, Canadians or Aussies have selected "English (US)" language without really thinking through. We'll see, but I think there will be quite a few confused people in a couple of weeks time regardless.
- fodkodrasz 3y agoThis does indeed preserve the console experience, basically this is the gist of it! Making gaming competitive kills one more way to have fun (competitive gaming -> cheats -> anti cheat measures -> less fun for the casual).
- scheeseman486 3y agoSo I guess they'll be blocking their accessibility controller? You know, the officially sold Microsoft Xbox accessory that lets you arbitrarily map inputs to any other controller you have sitting around? To preserve the console experience?
- DarkmSparks 3y agoPretty sure this breaks lots of consumer laws in europe. Not sure where the US is up to with its consumer protection (nowehere?), But if there is anything nice to be said about the crankies in Brussels it's that they come down hard on this behaviour.
- Garvi 3y agoNothing Apple hasn't been doing for years at much greater magnitudes without many objections from the tech crowd. Makes me sick to the stomach, but everyone seems to love Steve Jobs, the genius inventor, that never actually invented anything and died of a treatable cancer because he actually was a complete moron and didn't get treatment, because "he knew better" and opted for alternative medicine. Which reminds me of the joke: "You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proven to work? Medicine."
- RunSet 3y agoRelated: Wiimotes connect and function as bluetooth devices under both Linux and Windows but not Mac OS.
- frob 3y agoThis feels like a new development. I regularly attached a wiimote over Bluetooth to my Mac in the teens. It was my go-to clicker for presenting slides. I needed a dedicated program to map the controller buttons to the inputs I wanted, but the wiimotes attached over Bluetooth without any extra hardware.
- RunSet 3y agoWiimotes are broken on Apple silicon.
- CharlesW 3y ago> Nothing Apple hasn't been doing for years at much greater magnitudes without many objections from the tech crowd. I'm sincerely sorry that you retain this emotional bile to the degree that you're compelled to express it in an unrelated thread here. It's unpleasant to read, but I imagine it's far harder to live with. What's an example of a standards-based USB device that works with Windows and Linux, but that Jobs blocked on macOS?
- skywhopper 3y agoNow that the Activision acquisition has been approved, they can start tightening the screws.
- hospitalJail 3y agoSaw the righting on the wall earlier this year. Get out of M$ products.
- test6554 3y agoThey just bought activation for $68.7 billion. They need to sell a lot of genuine xbox controllers to make up for that.
- everyone 3y agoTitle checks out as the "console experience" is getting routinely shafted by a giant corp who is the one that actually owns the hardware.
- CivBase 3y agoThinley veiled attempt to extract money from sales of third-party peripherals. This would be trivial for manufacturers of cheat hardware to work around. All they have to do is modify first-party hardware. Only difference is now MS profits from it. Cheaters are scum but as someone who doesn't play many competitive games, I'm sick of being forced to make sacrifices to help deal with them.
- FFP999 3y ago[dead]
- dschuetz 3y agoI wonder when Microsoft start selling ad pop-ins on Windows and Xbox. You know, for better and enhanced user experience.
- hospitalJail 3y agoThis makes me so happy to be in Linux land free from M$'s grip.
- ckbishop 3y agoYou can stop using M$ if you want. It's not the 90's anymore. Every company could have a $.
- chankstein38 3y agoHave they blocked the Elite controller or whatever their $200 option is? I bought one and the A button has never functioned properly and several other interactions are frequently full of frustration. Doesn't that compromise my game experience too? Oh, it makes them money? Oh nevermind.
- cream_soda 3y agoits not an issue because they will have to leave the market soon due to an inability to provide a product customers will pay for
- frob 3y agoPlease take this as your daily reminder that you do not own many of your computing devices without going to extraordinary lengths which may make them inoperable on the actual owner's network.
- Dritzzka 3y agoThis is nothing new in the console space. They have always had a brand standards for accessories since Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis. This is just the evolution of consoles always being online. I can honestly say, at least with Microsoft they will ask nicely. Nintendo on the other hand will brick your devices out right.
- prmoustache 3y agoI don't think this will be enforced for long in europe.
- fennecfoxy 3y agoTbf on one hand, 3rd party controllers are often absolute crap for all platforms, cheap shitty stuff. On the other hand, this is just blocking out competitors/money grab as other comments have mentioned already. But I mean...why are people so upset they're doing it? Plenty of other companies already do this, especially Apple (which many of you seem to adore).
- k_roy 3y ago> Tbf on one hand, 3rd party controllers are often absolute crap for all platforms, cheap shitty stuff. I don't think we are talking about the MadCatz controllers you gave your younger sibling. This is 2023. There are many third party controllers that are superior in every way to stock ones. I've got a few 8BitDo controllers that I use to play basically everything possible, since bluetooth is so ubiquitous now.
- VikingCoder 3y agoIf you want to enforce this in competitive e-sports situations... ...or allow a specific game to say "this server is 1st party controller only" or something like that, yeah, maybe, I can see the logic. But a blanket block-out is obviously bullshit.
- rekoil 3y agoI honestly think that might be more damaging. Third-party alternatives must be allowed, the problem is Microsoft changing the rules long after shipping the console, in a way that not all perfectly fine controllers could be updated to handle.
- AlyssaRowan 3y agoIf they were restricting controllers from the start, that would be one thing, and controller exclusivity is something every console manufacturer right back to Atari has always thought about from the very beginning - mostly for cash-grab reasons, but also, much later on, with this very excuse. It's why the original XBox's USB controllers were a different shape. But to me this feels like a clear-cut case of interoperability, unilaterally and unconditionally removed after the fact of the sale of both millions of consoles and controllers (both first-party and not). Are they sure they want to do that? Now? This also reminds me very much of Sony's removal of OtherOS in the PS3, and I draw the analogy with what happened to the console's security afterwards very much in mind.
- nix0n 3y agoUS-based HN readers will know the experience of going to Best buy or Microcenter and having them offer you a warranty plan on your new controller. The official Xbox controller is the one thing I've ever bought that it's worth getting the warranty on. Anyone thinking that M$ plans to sell one controller per Xbox, is overestimating the reliability of those controllers.
- ericzawo 3y agoYep. My brother who is quite talented at Call of Duty goes through one controller every 8-12 months. He's on his 4th or 5th now.
- pawelduda 3y agoI hope this bites console manufacturers back by raising awareness that hall effect analogs exist and why does sony only put them in 4x more expensive gamepad than the regular one without hall effect sticks. Source: dual sense broken over years 5 times, every single one from stick drift. We aren't throwing these controllers around. Regular use for gaming.
- micromacrofoot 3y agothe second player getting the crap third party controller your grandma bought you for your birthday is ingrained in the annals of console gaming we shouldn't stand for these blatant cash grabs, this also means you can't use better third party controllers unless they pay the microsoft toll
- bobse 3y agoMicrosoft just fucked all disabled people. Bravo!
- dyingkneepad 3y agoAnd all the 6 people who play fighting games on Xbox.
- paradox242 3y agoNever let a crisis go to waste. An increasing number of console players are complaining about devices like the XIM4 being used to cheat or otherwise provide an unfair advantage. So now Microsoft can claim credit for fighting that while also increasing the number of first party or licensed hardware they sell seems win/win from their perspective I'm sure.
- pipeline_peak 3y agoKnowing how EU treated the iPhone, I’m sure they’ll have something to say about this.
- lobocinza 3y agoI'll rather stop playing than buy a console. PC is another world.