I abandoned Xbox back when they announced Xbox One and said it required a Kinect and would be always online for DRM purposes. The backlash was severe enough that I remember their stock price taking a hit and that Major Tom dude having to come out and backtrack.
I knew then and there that they’d always try to bring this DRM/hyper controlling nonsense back. Just didn’t think it’d take them so long.
I jumped over to Playstation and I can’t say I’m having a bad time. Some great exclusives have come out. Horizon Zero Dawn, Spider-Man 1 (I’m too poor for Spider-Man 2 so have no opinions), Bloodborne, God of War… Been a nice time and same here on Halo being the only thing I missed.
I was going to get Xbox (whatever the random name for this next gen is) for Christmas and have been with Microsoft since the 360, but now I’m moving back to the PlayStation 5. Granted, I’m barely a gamer and use it more as a media center than a game console, but even I’m getting tired of Microsoft. I’ve been off of their operating system since college so gaming is the last Microsoft product I had.
Gentoo is mostly for people who like to have maximum control over their OS and custom compile software they use.
Even if you have a beefy hardware, updates will take some time, and unless you want to study the compile flags, you will end up with the same binary builds you would on any other distro.
Yes, unless you actually care about compiling blutooth out of your packages (it’s fcking everywhere, whyy), just go with anything else.
The beauty of Linux is that you can do everything in every distro. Nothing stops you from installing Zorin and putting Portage (Gentoo package/build manager) on it. But if you just want to use software as-is, just use whatever. Pop should have better nvidia drivers for cards they ship with System76, Mint is less corporate Ubuntu, Zorin I’ve never tried.
“Made for Xbox” branding for proprietary accessories approved by Microsoft incoming. Anything else won’t work.
How hypocritical of MS to pull this on their consumers after making it such a big deal that competitors like Apple do this same thing. Pot meet Kettle.
Anyone surprised? MS is one of the shadiest companies out there. Google gathering user data? “Don’t get scroogled!” Microsoft account required for windows 11? That’s completely different. Gamers in particular just fell for their self-imposed image as the good guys because of Game pass and constantly bashing their competitors.
If I remember correctly, it was them first charging for online services under Xbox Live Gold for functionality that was usually free on PC.
Going way back to the beginnings of both companies, yes. Apple had the ‘walled garden’, where the idea was that you were safer with all things ‘Apple Approved’.
Microsoft and most of the industry went the other way at the time and MS grew exponentially.
Historically, 3rd party accessories on all platforms have been garbage. Glad to see them cracking down. There are rare exceptions like this Atari 2600 joystick:
Call me old-fashioned, but I think the free market offers an adequate solution for this—customers can tell for themselves which third-party accessories are bad and not buy them. Microsoft shouldn’t purposefully render them unusable. If you want guaranteed support, you’re always free to choose an official product.
Except the controllers who are doing external scripting are the best selling 3rd party controllers. So the free market has been pretty clear in that they don’t care if it’s a good product, they only care if it gives them an unfair advantage.
Letting the free market continue to regulate this means no change from the horrific state of controller based cheating that exists right now.
If PC players and PC games can handle cheating without needing to resort to banning third-party controllers, I see no reason that Microsoft magically needs to do so.
They’re just not widely used on pc. They can be, they just haven’t been adopted by cheaters as much on pc vs console.
Microsoft should have banned these controllers years ago tbh. There’s no way for game developers to reliably ban players using them. The problem is that they haven’t been able to handle cheating up to this point.
I do not find this argument very convincing. There are much harder-to-detect ways to cheat on PC and yet anti-cheat systems remain fairly effective. Remember that an XBOX is, from a software standpoint, just a Windows computer with far less functionality and some tweaks for performance. There are black-box cheat detection techniques.
There is no way you can paint this move as pro-consumer. It’s an anti-consumer move with some positive side effects.
Anti-cheats aren’t very effective on PC. For example EasyAntiCheat us known to be the easiest to bypass. These aren’t software level cheats, they’re hardware level and then translating inputs into new “valid” looking inputs. This is next to impossible to detect from client or server side. That’s why this has to be done.
No black box cheat detection has been widely worked out yet. Multiple games have tried to varying degrees of success, about this issue particularly. It hasn’t worked, that’s why more extreme measures are now being taken.
There’s no downside other than shitty controllers and cheating controllers being taken off the market.
Regardless of any amount of argumentation, the end result is that cheating on PC isn’t really that big of a problem.
Sometimes people want to use “shitty controllers” though. They’re much cheaper than official ones and in many cases work just as well. In my case, I have a $25 controller I bought off Amazon for my Nintendo Switch that also works for my PC and has RBG lighting and wired/wireless dual mode. It in all respects is better than a $70 official Nintendo controller and I suspect it’s the same for XBOX.
I mean, yeah, it’s true historically that first party has been generally better in quality. Going all the way back. But that does not mean it’s cool to block third party accessories.
Basically just means anything that is even mildly competitive in terms of price. Any licensed third party gear is the exact same price as the official accessories.
I’m not sure why you are defending moves clearly meant to fuck the consumer.
Because selling consumers cheap trash that they have to replace multiple times is worse for them than charging a higher price for a licensed product.
We’ve been over this across multiple generations. 3rd party controllers, 3rd party memory cards, they all sucked. Cheap? Yes. Very cheap, but if they’re half the price and you have to replace them 3 times, they stop being cheap.
Not that some official products are any better, the Elite controllers continue to be garbage and have spawned class action lawsuits.
Nowadays there are many 3rd party options that are better than any official offerings. Especially considering no 1st party has made the switch to hall effect joysticks.
Nah they’ll most likely find a work around, can’t imagine the check being hard to clear unless they are planning to add hardware identifiers and make all old official controllers obsolete.
I picked up this one about 6 mo ago and it’s been fantastic. My favorite controller by far. I’m waiting for them to make joycons and they’ll be an immediate buy.
I don’t need Microsoft telling me how to spend my money and they were definitely some good quality 3rd party stuff.
Honestly, I’ve seen a clear drop in quality since Microsoft killed or bought most of their competition for the official products. I didn’t use to replace my remotes (3rd party or official) but now I need to at least once a year with the official ones which are now also three times the price.
Microsoft doesn’t care about you, they actively hate you. You are money bag they suck on. No matter what the boot says, less competition is ALWAYS bad for the consumer.
Just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean other people don’t.
As a kid I had no hope of affording the official PlayStation racing wheel, but I could afford the MadCatz one. When I wanted a 2nd guitar controller to play with friends on the PS2, NYKO offered a wireless one that was much better than the official ones. My first wireless controller, before the WaveBird, was a MadCatz PS2 controller that was fantastic.
I spent a good chunk of this weekend researching 3rd party JoyCons because the ones from Nintendo are basically cheap novelty toys that sell for $80.
8BitDo have been making quality controllers for several years now, and they have a whole section of their website dedicated to Xbox stuff. They appear to be licensed, so they will probably still be good?
Especially with how expensive 1st party controllers are, it can make a ton of sense to get cheap 3rd party ones. Especially if you aren’t into hardcore or competitive games.
I went with the Wizard because I always thought the GameCube controller was fine. Not my favorite, not terrible. But I’m at least familiar with it. I saw some reviews mention that the QA and build quality might be a problem, and if that’s the case my next option is probably to try the Hyperion Pro.
Honestly I wish I could rip the controls off the Steam Deck or rip a DualSense in half.
lol as if politicians care about regulating monopolies any more… MS already got in trouble in the past for ONLY bundling their browser with the OS. They do so much worse these days and the paid-for government cheers it on…
To be clear, they’re not requiring us to buy Xbox brand official controllers. They’re requiring “authorized” controllers, which includes a lot of third-party brands. That’s still kinda shitty, but I don’t think it counts as tying.
Whether or not that “counts as infringement” is debatable, as stuff like this is pretty commonplace in the tech industry. See: Apple. If you want to spend the cash to lawyer up and take this issue to the Supreme Court, I support you.
What property right is violated? Genuine question.
The owner of the Xbox can buy and use whatever accessories they want. You just can’t expect them to let you access their network, not being able to be offline is a different matter of shitty practice but nothing about this is illegal, at least in the US.
In a significant development for Xbox users, the era of tinkering with your console to use unapproved accessories is drawing to a close.
I asked for a photo of the controller, and I’m not surprised it didn’t work, given the included adapter looks like something you get for free at the bottom of a box of cereal.
we have received player feedback concerning these products when used on Xbox consoles (the latest OS version 10.0.25398.2266. released on 10/16) during online gameplay.
Brook Gaming’s statement highlights a series of issues that have been plaguing third-party, unlicensed accessories, particularly since the rollout of console build 10.0.25398.2266, which was released on October 16.
As of right now, we haven’t seen any evidence that these types of accessories will be affected by the recent changes since Xbox has historically been unable to detect them, but we’re investigating.
Our sources indicate that Microsoft is lifting restrictions on the ability for third-party hardware manufacturers to build wireless accessories for Xbox Series X|S devices.
The original article contains 1,026 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 84%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Surely it will help them reclaim their spot as the de facto fighting game console in a scene where many people use unlicenced controllers with Brook boards.
Not really, just let the game devs chose when to request that the console enforces stricter verification of accessories and otherwise just allow whatever
But if someone wants to do an arcade controller, this changes almost nothing. Just solder the wires on the contact pads on an official Xbox controller. Impossible to detect via software
Even the turbo button can be done, with an intermediate IC that transforms the signal from the button to be intermittent
Microsoft sure loves blocking things from its game console nobody actually wants to use in the first place. Who exactly is going to want to buy a license to make video game controllers for the system that's last place in the console wars? Specialty controllers like the Neo-Geo click stick by 8BitDo are almost sure to be released for major formats, but NOT Xbox, if 8BitDo has to pay an extortionate fee for a license.
The 8BitDo stuff is what I had in mind as well. Everything I have from them has Xinput mode, and works great for PC Game Pass and Xcloud games. I was hoping that anything that supports Xinput would be available on the actual consoles, but walled garden.
Or just allow them always. It’s about the money, not about cheating. Also many games these days have cross play with PC anyways, where you can literally use a modified toaster as a controller if you want to lol.
the problem is that there are some really good devices on the market that essentially let players cheat in shooters, getting mouse-like input while retaining the game’s built-in aim assist features.
really the best compromise would be to let game developers decide whether unlicensed input devices can be used in their games (just like how they can choose whether to support m+kb). then shooters could impose reasonable restrictions without fucking over the fighting game community.
Same here. Ironically I’m using a bunch of original Xbox controllers on it. I just like the shape. whaddayagonnado microsoft? Your OS and your consoles are shit! You are the third party now!
Me too. And I even purchased the official proprietary dongle from Microsoft and play it wireless. Why not Bluetooth? I don't like Bluetooth, as I have bad experience with it in the past and would need a dongle for it anyway. Otherwise, the controller works very well with Steam and with non Steam emulators. Microsoft knows how to make good controllers, I give them that.
But on the other hand, I wonder how it is to have a PS5 controller. First, Sony has open source drivers for it and they are included in the Kernel I think (tag me wrong, if it's not true). Plus it has some features, which the Xbox controllers do not have. I'm very curious, but the prices for new controllers are so expensive!
Likely this will target modded controller jigs like “Chronus”.
This is definitely due to them now owning Call of Duty where these fucking users are rampant and since it’s not software hacks, it could be done on consoles…at least until now
Do they realize this may be the only way some people can legally play the games? I can imagine lots of disabilities that only let people play with a niche controller
Microsoft makes some very good quality adaptive controller accessories. IMO that still doesn’t make this move OK, but at least disabled people still have a supported option.
100% it’s a total moneygrab.
At the detriment of those who struggle the most already - those who need special equipment, and those who can’t afford official ctrls.
I bet they also won’t approve controllers designed to work on other consoles/devices as well. Necessitating getting one accessibility controller for your xbox and one for everything else.
🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:
Click here to see the summaryIn a significant development for Xbox users, the era of tinkering with your console to use unapproved accessories is drawing to a close. I asked for a photo of the controller, and I’m not surprised it didn’t work, given the included adapter looks like something you get for free at the bottom of a box of cereal. we have received player feedback concerning these products when used on Xbox consoles (the latest OS version 10.0.25398.2266. released on 10/16) during online gameplay. Brook Gaming’s statement highlights a series of issues that have been plaguing third-party, unlicensed accessories, particularly since the rollout of console build 10.0.25398.2266, which was released on October 16. As of right now, we haven’t seen any evidence that these types of accessories will be affected by the recent changes since Xbox has historically been unable to detect them, but we’re investigating. Our sources indicate that Microsoft is lifting restrictions on the ability for third-party hardware manufacturers to build wireless accessories for Xbox Series X|S devices. — Saved 84% of original text.
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