From November 12th, Microsoft promises to block third party accessories that are not authorized by the company from being used on the Xbox, on an unprecedented anti-competitive move. This restriction includes game controllers.

Some current unauthorized accessory users have been receiving the following warning:

A connected accessory is not authorized. Using unauthorized accessories compromises your gaming experience. For this reason, the unauthorized accessory will be blocked from use on 11/12/2023.

For help returning it, check with the store it came from or contact the manufacturer. To see authorized accessories, go to www.xbox.com/accessories. (0x82d60002).

Brook Gaming, a manufacturer of third party controller adapters and fight sticks, put out an official statement regarding the upcoming change, and are looking for solutions to keep their products working on Xbox consoles.

A list of authorized accessories can be found on the official Xbox accessory page--most of which are specifically wired gamepads. Going forward, brands will need to have a specific chip and authorization from Microsoft itself to function as an official wireless accessory on Xbox systems.

Source

 

[nWo]

Whoa. These guys at Microsoft are the ones responsible to start the shit of paying for playing online (if I'm wrong please let me know). They bought great IP's and let them to rot away (Conker ) and now THIS!

As a guy that grew out playing videogames, most of their practices are very weird to me. The problem is that, like with the paywall to play online, all the other companies see that the fans pay for it, and they follow on implementing it too.

 

[Kwyjor]

Am I the only one who remembers that the Wii has a gaping security vulnerability in its Bluetooth stack? Y'know, the one that finally let people hack the otherwise impenetrable Wii Mini?

It's not inconceivable that someone's concerned about a similar security vulnerability here.

 

[Dungeonseeker]

People gotta make a shit ton of noise to have them backpedal just like when they tried to increase the price of gamepass and xbox live

Wake the fuck up Spencer, maybe you're getting a bit too comfortable. Sure you got Activision and I think that's good, doesn't mean it's time to go nuts with something unrelated.

Yeah I've tried installing some games on Nobara. It's still pretty complicated when it's outside Steam (and even if it's in Steam, if your game uses another launcher it's something else)

Maybe one day we'll have something more akin to Windows, it's going to the right direction. Even anti cheats are getting compatible.

This is why SteamOS is a double edged sword for Linux.

On one hand it gets Linux gaming in the hands or more people and Valve 100% attracts the talented developers needed to make very complicated things work (since they do pay their programmers).

On the other hand its gets a hugely restricted Linux gaming experience (and TBC I fully understand why it has to be that way) in the hands of many people who are not exactly Linux experts.

SteamOS does its job incredibly well, that is to serve Valve customers with a platform to purchase and play games, Steam. Once you try and step outside the bounds though it becomes WAAAY more difficult to do even the most trivial of things. Flatpak helps a lot but its still not a perfect solution since you literally don't have rw access to anything other than ~ (users home folder) and /tmp.

I personally don't use Flatpak (outside of EasyEffects because you don't need 5 million LADSPA & VST plugins cluttering your app tray to use the FP version) so I'm actually not sure how available a lot of this stuff is but on non-immutable Linux we have things like Heroic and Lutris that are pretty much fully automated and allow you to log in to multiple accounts (EA, Ubi, R*, GOG etc etc), download, install, handle Proton/VKD3D/DXVK automagically and play games all from a single location.

Once you have everything configured I'd argue its a better experience than Windows (outside of the times when its just flat out incompatible) since you have access to all of your libraries in a single location, sure you still need launchers for EA, Ubi & R* but again they're handled by the launcher. Once you're signed in to everything you can run GTA V, CyberPunk & FarCry 6 all from one location.

 

[Marc_LFD]

First they cancel E3 now they ban 3rd partie controllers.... i swear, they are tyrants of gaming.

Well, they don't mind 3rd party as long as they pay their fee, but non-licensed?

 

[pedro702]

The guys at Brook are on their own now. They better get a license from Microsoft soon if they want to continue producing Xbox accessories.

yeah that license will include royalties for every year for sure lol they arent free, they will make the controllers more expensive for everyone console/pc to pay for Microsoft royalties if they do that.

 

[gnmmarechal]

This is pretty dodgy, the fuck

 

[k7ra]

YES, one more point to not to buy it.

 

[SDA]

even in the quote by @SDA there was no link.

Yet the link did work for me. I was brought to Microsoft's site when clicking on it.

 

[LightBeam]

Lutris that are pretty much fully automated and allow you to log in to multiple accounts (EA, Ubi, R*, GOG etc etc), download, install, handle Proton/VKD3D/DXVK automagically and play games all from a single location.

Once you have everything configured I'd argue its a better experience than Windows (outside of the times when its just flat out incompatible) since you have access to all of your libraries in a single location, sure you still need launchers for EA, Ubi & R* but again they're handled by the launcher. Once you're signed in to everything you can run GTA V, CyberPunk & FarCry 6 all from one location.

I've tried Lutris but it was a pain to install League of Legends. You still have to rely on scripts that others have uploaded.
And that's not even talking about running some garbage game uploaded in itch.io.
I guess it would be fine for the vast majority of people just wanting to play some games after work tho. But whenever you want to play some specific stuff, Windows comes back as a necessity.
Windows still is the better experience imo. If you wanna compare the experience on Linux with a single launcher then you'll have to compare it to something like Gog Galaxy or Playnite (which I use for quite some years now), and after testing Gog Galaxy, Lutris and Playnite, I can say without any doubt that the experience on Playnite is superior.

You made great points about Steam on Linux. But that's why I think it's fine for people who would be okay with relying on just that, but in the long run that's not going to be enough to totally replace Windows.

 

[Dungeonseeker]

I've tried Lutris but it was a pain to install League of Legends. You still have to rely on scripts that others have uploaded.
And that's not even talking about running some garbage game uploaded in itch.io.
I guess it would be fine for the vast majority of people just wanting to play some games after work tho. But whenever you want to play some specific stuff, Windows comes back as a necessity.
Windows still is the better experience imo. If you wanna compare the experience on Linux with a single launcher then you'll have to compare it to something like Gog Galaxy or Playnite (which I use for quite some years now), and after testing Gog Galaxy, Lutris and Playnite, I can say without any doubt that the experience on Playnite is superior.

You made great points about Steam on Linux. But that's why I think it's fine for people who would be okay with relying on just that, but in the long run that's not going to be enough to totally replace Windows.

I'll respectively disagree whilst fully acknowledging that I'm certainly not in the category where that applies. I've been an exclusive Linux user for almost 10 years so for me its no big deal to dive into configs and wikis to find answers but yeah, for an average PC gamer, Windows is more seamless. I'll never say its better though, its Windows so its automatically bad in my book.

Edit - Things have improved so much in the last 3 years its pretty incredible. These days as long as you pick a sensible distro (that's not Ubuntu) then in the vast majority of cases things just work. It actually took me a while to learn that trying to override defaults these days more often than not ends in disaster. My mindset was stuck in the pre-proton days when you had to define every environment variable manually and prey that everything magically works, nowadays though everything comes pre configured.

 

[KiiWii]

Yet the link did work for me. I was brought to Microsoft's site when clicking on it.

That’s great, but the link didn’t even physically show for me, so there was nothing for me to click.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway it’s over and done with now, cheers.

 

[HarveyHouston]

Ultimately, I think it should be the end-user's decision, not Microsoft's. You don't see Nintendo or Sony doing this, do you?

 

[AndorfRequissa]

what a horrible thing to do. controllers should be available and useable for anyone that can make them work. i know personally ive played some systems only using the official controller and some systems i wouldnt even play if they forced me to with the original controller. i have big hands and some of my favorite games wouldnt be able to be played on systems without third party controllers that fit me not some small person in japan.

microsoft is worse than japanese console makers.

 

[Error-1-2435-8325]

Another thing to put on my non-existent list of reasons why the Xbox 360 is better.

 

[LightBeam]

I'll respectively disagree whilst fully acknowledging that I'm certainly not in the category where that applies. I've been an exclusive Linux user for almost 10 years so for me its no big deal to dive into configs and wikis to find answers but yeah, for an average PC gamer, Windows is more seamless. I'll never say its better though, its Windows so its automatically bad in my book.

Edit - Things have improved so much in the last 3 years its pretty incredible. These days as long as you pick a sensible distro (that's not Ubuntu) then in the vast majority of cases things just work. It actually took me a while to learn that trying to override defaults these days more often than not ends in disaster. My mindset was stuck in the pre-proton days when you had to define every environment variable manually and prey that everything magically works, nowadays though everything comes pre configured.

Haha I can absolutely understand that sentiment. I work in IT and I do love Linux. I tried to get Nobara as my only daily driver for work and study but damn, it's hard. So I had Windows as a dual boot for convenience. As my daily driver as a huge gamer it seems hard for me to really just dive constantly into making each game work. Sometimes I do love doing that tho, just not all the time.

I'm not even just « the average gamer », but this experience with Nobara really humbled me quite a bit. What I mean is that I thought it would be easier for me, so it made me realize that even tho it progressed a lot (I remember when I was in middle school already trying to have WoW run on WINE with OpenGL on Ubuntu because my father locked the Windows session behind a password, it was something else), it's still not quite there but that's also why I wanted to try and support the initiative. Gaming on Linux needs to be a thing and I'm glad it's going further even for multiplayer online games.

 

[tech3475]

This is why SteamOS is a double edged sword for Linux.

On one hand it gets Linux gaming in the hands or more people and Valve 100% attracts the talented developers needed to make very complicated things work (since they do pay their programmers).

On the other hand its gets a hugely restricted Linux gaming experience (and TBC I fully understand why it has to be that way) in the hands of many people who are not exactly Linux experts.

SteamOS does its job incredibly well, that is to serve Valve customers with a platform to purchase and play games, Steam. Once you try and step outside the bounds though it becomes WAAAY more difficult to do even the most trivial of things. Flatpak helps a lot but its still not a perfect solution since you literally don't have rw access to anything other than ~ (users home folder) and /tmp.

I personally don't use Flatpak (outside of EasyEffects because you don't need 5 million LADSPA & VST plugins cluttering your app tray to use the FP version) so I'm actually not sure how available a lot of this stuff is but on non-immutable Linux we have things like Heroic and Lutris that are pretty much fully automated and allow you to log in to multiple accounts (EA, Ubi, R*, GOG etc etc), download, install, handle Proton/VKD3D/DXVK automagically and play games all from a single location.

Once you have everything configured I'd argue its a better experience than Windows (outside of the times when its just flat out incompatible) since you have access to all of your libraries in a single location, sure you still need launchers for EA, Ubi & R* but again they're handled by the launcher. Once you're signed in to everything you can run GTA V, CyberPunk & FarCry 6 all from one location.

In regards to Flatpak, there are ways to change the RW permissions such as Flatseal (I've not used it myself though). Although IMO they should make Flatpak by default more 'Android-esque' e.g. ask on first run for extended file permissions.

But still, I'd take Flatpak over compile from source, years ago when I had to live with Linux Mint for a week on a Netbook, I wanted to play Marathon via Alephone. On Win I just had to download the binary/game files and run the exe, on Linux it was compile from source at the time, so I had to mess around downloading all the libraries and then the damn thing wouldn't compile.

 

[Daggot]

How to undermine your brand and alienate your consumers 101.

 

[Xzi]

You don't see Nintendo or Sony doing this, do you?

PS5 does put some limits on controllers detected as PS4, but the big difference is that those limitations were present at launch. You don't make major changes like this almost four years into a console's lifecycle, when people are already comfortable with what works and what doesn't.

 

[retrospect]

Have Sony or Nintendo done anything like this?

 

[KingVamp]

Still anti-consumer, but if they just did this to new controllers and not existing ones, at least they have some legs to stand on.