Xbox One controller PC gaming support will be available next year
As it stands, the Xbox 360 controller is the go-to gamepad for PC gamers looking to set aside their keyboards and mice. But with a new and improved Xbox controller set to land alongside the Xbox One next-gen console, many have hoped that it too will be compatible with PC games.
And Microsoft have now confirmed that it will be. But not until some point in 2014 – despite sharing a similar industrial design as the Xbox 360 controller, the Xbox One gamepad’s internals mean that all-new software must be written to ensure compatibility with existing PC games.
“The Xbox One controller, although it looks similar in many ways, shares no underlying technology with the current Xbox 360 controller. New wireless protocol, combined with the ability to work in ‘wired’ mode, and the addition of features like Impulse triggers, means that new software has to be written and optimised for the PC,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CVG.
“There is also some work that we need to do to make sure that existing PC games that support the Xbox 360 controller, will work with the Xbox One controller. While it seems trivial, it’s actually quite a bit of dedicated work for all that to be seamless for the user.
“We know people want to use the Xbox One controller on their PC, and we do too – we expect to have the functionality available in 2014.”
