You can argue the merits of the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S all day, but there’s no denying Sony was more ambitious when it came to their new controller. Xbox boss Phil Spencer will admit it himself, as he previously applauded Sony’s work on the DualSense controller, but now it seems he’s going a step further. During a discussion of future Xbox accessory plans on the most recent Kinda Funny Gamescast, Spencer again praised the Sony’s gamepad and seemed to hint he envisions an update for the Xbox Series X/S controller that could add some DualSense features.
When I think about our hardware roadmap, and I really love the evolution of Liz Hamren’s team and the work that they’ve done. We’re definitely thinking about different kinds of devices that can bring more games to more places. There’s probably some work that we’ll do on [the] controller. I think Sony’s done a nice job with their controller and we kind of look at some of that and [think] there are things that we should go do. But [we’re] probably not in the more bespoke accessories place right now.
It will be interesting to see what form a future Xbox controller might take. Could Microsoft update their standard gamepad with extra features, or could we perhaps see a new Xbox Elite controller? Spencer previously hinted the latter was probably more likely…
Not all of our controllers have all exactly the same capability. The Elite has the buttons on the back and stuff. We can’t turn the [Xbox] controller inside out because there’s so much expectation about the way it should work now, [but] we can innovate on top of that.
What do you think Xbox fans? Would you buy an Xbox controller with DualSense-like features like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers? Or are you happy with something more basic?
