Xbox One Controller: What Does It Do, Exactly? [Video]

The Xbox One controller does a lot of new things, and we’re here to break down exactly what it does.

Yes, your console controller does what it’s supposed to do. It’s always been about making sure that what you do with it affects what happens in the game. That’s the way it’s been since the days of the dedicated Pong consoles.

Thanks to Nintendo, however, the controller has evolved, as previously reported by The Inquisitr. Nintendo was the first to give us analog sticks, shoulder buttons, rumble devices, portable consoles and the directional plus-shaped control pad.

The first improvement to the Xbox One controller is haptic feedback, which is like a combination of the vibrations we’ve come to be familiar with and touch controls. The game will give you sensory “notifications” of what’s going on and such. You will be able to feel the difference between various weapons and road conditions. A rifle will feel different from a pistol, and a right-wheel skid will feel different from an outright crash.

The thumb sticks were made more precise, with more porous “microphone” texture to aid in grip, giving your movements more control than before. A lot of ergonomics research went into it, including the removal of screws, but let’s get back to what the Xbox One controller actually does.

A new micro-USB port in the controller itself will enable gamers to convert between wired and wireless, so if you don’t have any batteries, there is no problem. Just plug it in and keep going. Also, the wireless controls have been upgraded to give more instantaneous results. The lag has been reduced, in other words.

Using the Kinect, which The Inquisitr reports is not mandatory now, you can hand the controller to another player and it will change which gamer profile is being used thanks to face recognition. We can only hope that it will be able to tell the difference between identical twins.

Also, not mentioned in the video is the fact that the Xbox One controller will be usable with PC games starting next year, much like the Xbox 360 controller did, even though you might need to download a driver to make it work.

What do you think of what the Xbox One controller does?