Gaming has come a long way in this era of handheld gaming devices, next gen consoles and PC based gaming.
I was a PC Gamer way before I moved to the Xbox 360 back in September of 2008. My move to console based gaming happened because Electronic Arts had decided to discontinue the Tiger Woods and Madden franchises on the computer.
During those PC gaming days I played all of the first person shooter (FPS) style games like Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem and similar style games. Put me in front of a mouse and keyboard with a FPS and I was ruling the map. Well at least in my own head I was!
Even Madden and Tiger Woods could be controlled by your mouse and keyboard.
However, when I made the jump to console based gaming on the Xbox 360 the controller was an entire new way to interact with my games and I was not very good with it on the FPS games.
I tried many of them and failed miserably. Then I discovered some games that put me in third person view in control of a character and I started to gain some skills using that controller to interact with the game. I am still not very good at pure FPS games but I have improved over the years.
One of the things you could not do in those old days was move your controller between your gaming console and your PC for gaming. They were simply incompatible with each other.
Today I want to share with you how that one small detail has changed with the introduction of the Xbox One Controller and Cable for Windows.
If you already own an Xbox One this controller is going to look very familiar because this controller not only looks like the controller you received with your Xbox One it is fully compatible in either wired or wireless (with batteries) mode on your Xbox One.
On the PC side you do not need any batteries just plug the provided USB cable into the controller and plug that into a powered USB port on your compatible device (see below).
Unfortunately, this is not compatible with Windows RT 8 or 8.1 however it will work with games on the desktop and modern games from the Windows Store.
I must admit it was fun to play Asphalt 8: Airborne on my Windows 8.1 desktop using a controller.
Finding compatible modern app style games is hit and miss right now but I hope to see more game developers implementing the Xbox One Controller and Cable for Windows for their games.
So If you are an Xbox One gamer and also have Windows this is the one controller than can be used on both of those gaming platforms plus it gives you that spare controller when a friend comes over to game.
Oh, by the way, that controller that came with your Xbox One? It can also be used over on your PC rig as well.
Xbox One Controller and Cable for Windows Product Page (Pre-order)
System Requirements
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 8
- Windows 7
- Pentium 300 MHz or higher processor Memory
- 128 MB of RAM
- 150 MB of available hard disk space
- Powered USB port
PC Drivers for the Xbox One Controller and Cable
Xbox One Controller and Cable Product Guide (PDF)
Xbox One Controller and Cable Product Guide (XPS)