Yesterday, we already went through the Xbox Series X in detail (and the PlayStation 5 „book” is coming tomorrow, be warned!), but the controller didn’t fit in.

So let’s see what Ryan Whitaker, the senior designer of Xbox, told Xbox Wire about the new controller. He says they wanted improved ergonomics for a wider range of people, better cross-device connectivity, easier sharing, and reduced latency with the new wireless Xbox controller.

„Being more inclusive is part of the design process from the very beginning. That’s true for everything we make at Xbox. Whether we’re redesigning our standard controller or inventing a completely new one, like the Adaptive Controller, we ask ourselves and gamers, “How can we make gaming a better experience for everyone?” By listening to gamers and observing how people of all backgrounds and abilities play, we continue to learn more and find areas we can improve. One key area we’re improving is fitting a wider range of hand sizes, especially smaller hands. By accommodating hands similar to those of an average 8-year-old, we found we could improve accessibility and comfort for hundreds of millions more people without negatively affecting the experience for those with larger hands. We did that by rounding the bumpers, slightly reducing and rounding parts around the triggers, and carefully sculpting the grips,” Whitaker says. The controller will be cross-compatible with the Xbox One consoles, which is nice.

We’re not going into the reduced lag (DLI – Dynamic Latency Input), so let’s move on to see what he says about the new and improved D-Pad: „The new D-pad is about boosting performance and accessibility for all the ways people play. And it’s one of my favourite parts of the new design. When looking at the wide range of game genres and personal playstyles today, the D-pad is used in a lot of different ways. That’s why our Elite controllers have swappable D-pads. For some games, having crisp cardinal directions (up, down, left, right) with well-defined edges is what gamers need, and the cross is great for that. Some gamers need to hit accurate diagonals or perform sweep actions, which is where the facetted dish is designed to excel. And, of course, based on personal playstyles, some people just prefer one over the other.”

The Xbox Series X is arriving probably this Holiday season, complete with this controller in the box. Oh, and that unknown slot in the back of the prototype? That was indeed for the external storage – you can fit in a card with a 1 TB NVME SSD.

Source: VG247

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