Controllers not officially licensed by Xbox will stop working with their consoles soon, and many gamers are rightfully angry about this.
Did you happen to skimp on the controller you use with your Xbox console? 3rd party peripherals are always a bit of a gamble where quality and endurance are concerned, but this particular purchase decision might come back to bite you in an entirely new way: Xbox have decided to ban all controllers not greenlit by them for use with Xbox consoles after November 12 of this year.
This news broke not via a press release like you might expect, but via reports of users getting a new error message when they tried to use their knock-off Xbox controller with their console recently.
The brand-new error 0x82d60002 signals that a peripheral connected to the console is not officially licensed by Xbox and "will be blocked from use on 12/11/2023." Windows Central later got hold of an Xbox spokesperson, who elaborated on this new policy change:
"Microsoft and other licensed Xbox hardware partners' accessories are designed and manufactured with quality standards for performance, security, and safety. Unauthorized accessories can compromise the gaming experience on Xbox consoles (Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.) Players may receive a pop-up warning that their accessory is unauthorized. Eventually, the unauthorized accessory will be blocked from use to preserve the console gaming experience. For a full list of accessories that are supported on Xbox consoles, please visit www.xbox.com/accessories, our support pages here and here and our Designed for Xbox Partner Hardware Program page here."
Complete Controller Saturation - Does Yours Still Work?
Now, there are two different angles to view this new policy from. One is that unlicensed peripherals are usually of lower quality than official ones. Xbox putting their foot down and banning manufacturers cutting corners with their products from doing business off their consoles could therefore be seen as a consumer-friendly move!
And if rumors are to be believed, this could pave the way for Xbox finally giving licensed manufacturers access to Xbox consoles' wireless functions, enabling the production of wireless 3rd party Xbox peripherals like controllers.
On the other hand, more choice is always better for consumers, so Xbox suddenly deciding to pick and choose which controllers their players get to use is somewhat foreboding. What about fightsticks, steering wheels and other custom peripherals? What about lower-income households that can't afford the more expensive official controllers? And shouldn't consumers get to decide how they use the products they purchase in the first place? It all smacks of the kind of attitude that led to the Xbox One always-online controversy back in 2013.
How do you feel about this change? Do you have a controller or other peripheral that might be affected by it? If you do, there's still time to switch to a safe one .