Software

As with the Xbox Elite Series 2, Microsoft has a first-party program to use for further customization of the more-standard Xbox wireless controller, and I am not referring to the base Windows drivers needed for functionality. No, this is the Xbox Accessories app found only on the Windows Store. I've made my thoughts on how I feel about the Windows Store clear before, so I will just note that the app is thus for Win 10 and Xbox consoles. It is lightweight on system resources, so the lack of any installation options other than a yes or no is no deal breaker.


Whether or not you are signed into your Xbox profile, and irrespective of whether the controller is connected to your PC via Bluetooth or USB, there has likely been a firmware update since the controller was packed up. This was the case here too, with the Xbox Accessories app confirming an update was required before I could do anything else. This requires a wired connection, and the whole process only takes a couple of minutes.


At this point, you are greeted to a mostly bare and gray home page with a slider on the right leading to where you would add a second controller. You need to also have the Xbox app installed and signed into, which is just another reason I find this whole Microsoft system so pervasive. What if I never want to use this on an Xbox/Windows store game? I suppose I am no different from a Windows 7 user then since I can't do anything with the app! So I just used my default Windows 10 email address and changed the gamertag to something more specific for the review, knowing that I don't plan on using this account for anything else anyway.

If you have gone through all the hurdles Microsoft unnecessarily put in front of you, you can finally get to customizing the new Xbox wireless controller. I do like that there is a quick-test button to make sure everything is working as expected first, and whether re-mapped functions are also recognized as such. I also chose to record both sound and video this time around, if only so you can get an idea of what the various buttons, thumbsticks, paddle sticks, bumpers, and triggers sound like. a single profile saved on the controller itself, and it is available for customization. You can at any time create new ones saved in the software until you swap over to replace it. This means you might have to configure the controller as best as you can by default and forget about it since no one is going to practically keep updating their only available controller profile for different games. That having been said, you could if the motivation to do so for a single game you'll be playing for a while is there, of course. You can re-map every single button on the controller, but do not get the further tweaks that the Elite Series 2 did.