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Xbox has taken a definitive stance by instituting a new policy that will block the use of unauthorized accessories with its consoles, effective as of November 17.
This decision has already begun to reverberate amongst the gaming community, and many have already had a warning about it on their consoles in the form of error message 0x82d60002.
It's a big shift that's going to impact all those accessories that don't have the Xbox seal of approval. Made more apparent by Xbox redirecting the user to its own official storefront.
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.
Now, we're hearing that Microsoft does have an approval process for official third-party wireless controllers, and this new restriction may be a result of new security measures to put restrictions on inputs that could circumvent play or inject unfair advantages.
The downside, of course, is that Xbox's new policy is affecting many "fair" accessories, particularly in the case of fighting game joysticks and other similar accessories.
The problem seems to revolve around brands that haven't acquired this licensing but still market their products as compatible with Xbox. It appears that Microsoft is actively blocking these items.
I've never been one to play competitive online games since I have the hand/ eye coordination of a house plant, so I can't weigh in on the advantages of blocking controllers that are "unfair"; but as someone who hated button mashing "A" in Animal Crossing, I can say that custom controllers can definitely have a place with a console.
In my opinion, this feels like Microsoft simply wanted more licensing money and is doing it under the guise of fair online play. It reminds me of Apple locking faster charging and data transfer on USB-C to their own proprietary USB cables.
Hopefully this does not negatively affect too many people.
The unfair advantage argument definitely holds water, mouse and keyboard can be like a sports car racing against a bicycle. But if someone had the budget to tackle this issue through software, it would be Microsoft. So I'm inclined to agree that it's mostly just MS squeezing money out of third party manufacturers.
If they'd care only about the "unfair", they'd put a fair, almost free, price on the official license that covers the cost of testing or whatever. Truth presumably here is also a bit more complicated, maybe third party controllers could be easier to hack resulting in an ineffective licensing system, idk. But yeah smells like money for Microsoft and a loss for consumers.
Wouldn't the unfair advantage only hold water if they blocked unauthorized accessories only with online multi-player games and leave single-player experiences alone?
That's honestly an incredibly good solution.
Okay, but you already can’t use a keyboard and mouse in most games on an Xbox. It has to specifically be enabled by the developer, and the game would have to be coded to even accept that input.
All HID input devices have identifiers that they communicate to the host to determine their functions. I guess you could potentially make a device that appears to be a controller and translates keyboard/mouse with a couple USB inputs. You could probably get a Pi to do that. But no one cares about winning on console that badly, they just go play on PC 🙄
Search xbox mouse adapter on amazon. There are so many products that do what you describe people wouldn't care to do because they don't care.
Okay, then I’m going to default back to the fact that someone’s going to break the DRM and still make those devices, and this is only going to hurt people using accessible controllers.
You are probably right. Devices like these in the old days used to require you hook up an official controller to it to get past the drm. Likely will evolve back to that.
They control the console, the OS, the controller hardware, and can require the console to connect to them. They already have the ability to push out controller firmware updates. They can have the controller cryptographically authenticate to the console and push blacklists to the console of keys that get leaked (like if someone somehow extracts a key from a legit controller and uses it to make a knockoff).