Xbox’s new policy — say goodbye to unofficial accessories from November thanks to error ‘0x82d60002’::Got error 0x82d60002 on your Xbox accessory? There’s no fix, Xbox is going to block the use of detected unauthorized accessories with its consoles from November 12, 2023.

  • kadu
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    602 years ago

    Modern consoles are just PCs - there are no architectural differences like how the SNES could manipulate background layers better than any consumer PC back in the day.

    They’re just PCs… but you’re tied to outdated hardware, one specific game store, one specific set of accessories, one specific set of software updates…

    Why?

    • HobbitFoot
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      22 years ago

      Because it is cheaper to develop for, so you tend to get games that take better advantage of the hardware and increase performance.

      You also have consumer inertia too.

          • kadu
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            32 years ago

            Can’t argue with that - but I can argue with the long term cost as the generations go on.

            If it’s your first PC vs your first console, sure, the PC is more expensive. The next generation though? All I upgraded from my last rig was the GPU, that’s it, and it was indeed cheaper than what a Series X or PS5 would cost me here - and I run games like Cyberpunk, Starfield and more with way better settings.

            • HobbitFoot
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              12 years ago

              Your graphics card might be cheaper than a whole console, but you still spent more money on a computer initially, so you would have to compare the cost of two consoles to one new computer and an upgrade.

              And it likely is better performance now on PC versus console now for only a bit more money, but PC’s haven’t caught up on price for equivalent performance and likely never will.

              And I say this as someone whose last console that was bought for its performance was a PS3.

              • kadu
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                32 years ago

                Your graphics card might be cheaper than a whole console, but you still spent more money on a computer initially, so you would have to compare the cost of two consoles to one new computer and an upgrade.

                Disagree - if I bought a PC last gen, and a GPU current gen, I’ve spent less than a friend who bought a PS4 and later a PS5.

          • @[email protected]
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            32 years ago

            Consoles are initially sold at a loss or no profit to incentivise people to buy games on their platform, where the real profit is made. However, at this point in time, yes, you can buy pre-built gaming PCs for around $500 that will run circles around an XBOX Series X or PlayStation 5. You can even buy a $300 office computer then pop an A580 or something in it and make it a fully-equipped gaming PC. Even more so if you use your own hardware and build it yourself.

            If you’re just looking for something that works out of the box when you buy it, there are tonnes of people on Facebook Marketplace selling custom-built gaming PCs for around that price range that will still outperform lastest-generation consoles.

            Don’t forget, when comparing performance, consoles generally use a mixture of medium/high settings to guarantee a steady 60 FPS whereas PC testing is traditionally done on Ultra/High presets.

            I will say that PCs do require a bit more technical knowledge and maybe some tinkering to get the best performance though. If all you do is game and you know nothing about how to do anything else on the computer, I would recommend the console ten out of ten times.

            • @[email protected]
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              32 years ago

              I can also buy and sell console games 2nd hand though which isn’t possible on PC anymore.

              That said, PC piracy probably wins overall if you’re looking the absolute cheapest option. But that’s kind of a different set of arguments.

              • @[email protected]
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                22 years ago

                That’s true, I miss secondhand PC games too.

                PCs have other benefits too, such as free online access that would require a subscription on consoles. Unrelated to gaming, a PC can be used for other things too. The only non-gaming use for a console is as a home media player. A PC can do that and much more. A gaming PC also makes an excellent productivity machine, whereas you can’t exactly edit spreadsheets and presentations on most consoles (except the Steam Deck).

                • @[email protected]
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                  22 years ago

                  I gamed on PC for many years and basically only moved to a console when I had kids a few a years back.

                  Both have benefits. For me, I like the not being distracted by other stuff on the console. Like if I sit down to game, on PC I’d often just end up on YouTube, twitch, check reddit, emails, whatever. I like that my console I just use for gaming.

                  I still play on my PC from time to time and there’s obviously games that are only on PC, but my preference is console for the current phase of life and that’s fine for me.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      Back in the day, Nintendo got big on quality control. That’s less of a selling point now that almost every big publisher is pushing for yearly releases and devs need to rush out unfinished games to meet corporate expectations. A console was also just miles ahead in user friendliness that a computer up until around the PS4/Xbone.

      The way forward for consoles these days is to have more interesting hardware, but Microsoft is resistant to just having gyro in the xbox controller so don’t hold your breath for the next xbox being anything worth looking at.

    • @[email protected]
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      132 years ago

      As a consumer, having certified static hardware configuration means you know exactly how it’s going to run off reviews on the same hardware. You know that you are going to get support the manufacturer and aren’t going to have to worry about the manufacturer of the motherboard pointing fingers at the manufacturer of the GPU or RAM or CPU if you have a problem. Updates and driver support is all handled by the OS.

      But probably the biggest reason is that consoles already have the best name recognition, higher user adoption, and hardware is sold at a discount compared to comparable PCs.

    • @[email protected]
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      12 years ago

      While there some advantages to that static more gate kept setup that we all could argue about for years on end, the answer to your question boils down to money and control like pretty much everything else.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      because having a stable, unchanging platform is a lot easier to code on and extract performance from than the 100,000,000,000 billion possible combinations of PC hardware.

      edit

      You can get angry over it all you want, it doesnt change the fact that its the truth.

      In fact, the state of games in general is shit because a lot of you fucking goblins with more money than sense keep running out and pre-ordering/day1ing games and fawning over them no matter how much of a broken piece of shit they are, and white knight against any and all criticism. Maybe if YOU stopped creating a market for shitty, broken, badly performing games, They’d stop fucking releasing shitty, broken, badly performing games.

      But no, you don’t want to be responsible for your actions, So you want to take it out on everyone else… because god forbid it ever be mommies special little angel thats at fault.

      So remember that next time you want to scree about consoles or whatever else. Cause they are not the problem. People like you are.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          I don’t have a lot of time for gaming, and my desktop computer I built 12 years ago still works for what I need it for (and the occasional Rocket League rounds), so the PS5 is just easier. Plug and play when I want to.

          Been playing games I got through the PS+ Extra for two years, and haven’t purcy for a single game since, as I’m a patient gamer, and the selection of games is right up my alley!

          Oh, and if I’d have the money (and time), I’d get aPC instead. Maybe when the PS6 is released.

          • Dudewitbow
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            12 years ago

            But its 2023, pc gamers get free games every week on epic without having to pay for an online subscription, and thats solely just epic.

          • kadu
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            12 years ago

            That’s all fair, and at the end of the day, if you can sit down, relax and enjoy your free time with your games, that’s all good.

            But as this article suggests, I really wish players would start to change their purchase habits in response to such restrictive and arbitrary decisions by console manufacturers.

          • kadu
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            12 years ago

            You’re the one who made the argument - if you can’t handle a reply, do not write one.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        I think the moment that happens, it’ll truly become the year of the Linux desktop.

        Over the course of fifteen years, we went from WINE being able to run nothing but World of Warcraft in a playable state, to thousands of games now being playable through Proton with equivalent or even sometimes better performance than Windows.

        Valve were wise to put their eggs in the Linux basket, because they’ve evolved Linux as a gaming platform by leaps and bounds. Steam Machines may have flopped but the Steam Deck has sold millions and given developers legitimate reason to support Linux (or at least SteamOS.)

        There’s been talk about Microsoft plastering ads all over Windows 11 or making Windows 12 a subscription-only OS. Linux is free, open source and ad-free.

          • @[email protected]
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            32 years ago

            No? Nvidia and AMD have been the main competitors for a while in the high end space, and Intel recently entered that market after dominating the integrated GPU space.

          • kadu
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            42 years ago

            Lose one? I’m not sure what you’re talking about, to be fair. Are you thinking about EVGA no longer making GPUs? They’re just making the boards, not the chips, many competitors exist.

            We have 3 major players providing GPUs in the PC market: Nvidia with a significant lead, AMD, and the newcomer Intel.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 years ago

              If you count integrated GPUs (which still absolutely dominate the non-specialist PC and laptop market), Intel are hardly a newcomer. Their foray into discrete GPUs is new, but the distinction is fairly arbitrary from a technical perspective.

              • kadu
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                22 years ago

                Integrated GPUs are an entirely different beast - unless you mean APUs, but Intel is not particularly experienced with those.

                The Intel HD Graphics block inside a Core i5 is very architecturally different from an Intel Arc GPU.

                • @[email protected]
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                  2 years ago

                  The Intel HD Graphics block inside a Core i5 is very architecturally different from an Intel Arc GPU.

                  Both Intel Arc and the integrated SOC GPUs use Intel’s Xe architecture. There are obviously big differences between integrated and discrete GPUs, but they’re largely implementation rather than base architecture. Implementing something on-die is a different task than implementing something on its own wafer, but that’s not where the serious design legwork goes.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 years ago

              I assume he meant EVGA. They’re a hardware company that used to manufacture graphics cards designed by Nvidia but exited the GPU market because of unfavorable contract conditions eating into their profit margins.

              Plenty of other third-party manufacturers exist like Sapphire, XFX, PowerColor, Zotac, ASRock, Inno3D, Colorful, MSI and ASUS.

              As for the main companies that design (and also manufacture) GPU’s: AMD, Nvidia and more recently Intel.

              • kadu
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                12 years ago

                I assume he meant EVGA. They’re a hardware company that used to manufacture graphics cards designed by Nvidia but exited the GPU market because of unfavorable contract conditions eating into their profit margins.

                That’s what I wrote, yes.

            • @[email protected]
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              2 years ago

              EVGA, that’s who I was thinking of. So we still lose them really from the forefront. Also like Intel and AMD isn’t pushing for further control. Exactly what I meant.

              • Dudewitbow
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                52 years ago

                Evga is an AIB(and a single one in a goant pool), not a GPU designer like Nvidia/Intel/AMD are. The equivalent in console terms would be like madcatz dropping out of the accesory creation game. The only difference is that the accessory makers also have a hand in the hardwares design, but not the actual compute core itself.

                • @[email protected]
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                  12 years ago

                  I appreciate you clarifying that, they were one of the largest would you not agree? Anyway point still stands, not enough competition in the gpu designer market would you agree?

    • Pxtl
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      212 years ago

      Simple: because they’re cheaper.

      Like, say you build a gaming PC that’s comparable to a PS5. I think it would be extremely hard to come up with a combination of PSU, ram, mobo, GPU, CPU, wifi, storage, case, keyboard, mouse, and game controller that costs less than a PS5 and has comparable performance. Even if you picked entry-level components. And you still have to pay the Windows tax probably. And all of that was much more difficult than just buying a PS5 – not everybody has the time.

      • @[email protected]
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        62 years ago

        Then again, rebuying all your games and paying way too much for them is something to take into account. But admittedly, the PS5’s thing where you can play some PS4 games is pretty neat.

    • Dudewitbow
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      62 years ago

      Theres actually a single one on the PS5, it essentially has a chip to hardware accelerate storage to ram loading speeds that PC speeds cant fully tap into yet.

      Playstation devs are just badly leveraging the sole advantage it has.

      The Xbox is virtualy a pc.

        • Dudewitbow
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          12 years ago

          it has some of the speed, but it’s not quite the same. direct storage is something the Xbox would have access to, but xbox is not directly hardware accelerated in the same way the PS5 is. Think similar to FSR VS DLSS. one utilizes special hardware in order to achieve its result.

      • kadu
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        72 years ago

        You’re absolutely correct about this chip - but it’s actually possible to replicate on PC with modern GPUs and CPUs, as they have really fast decompression blocks for specific algorithms that would work for game assets.

        The issue is that for compatibility reasons developers don’t rely on them.

    • Carlos Solís
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      42 years ago

      Console developers sell at a loss specifically to tie you to their ecosystem and get as much money from you as possible. Which is why it’s so complicated to get a PC equivalent in specs to, say, a PS5 at the price of an actual PS5 - unless you go to the used parts route and learn how to assemble parts by yourself.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    62 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    In a significant development for Xbox users, the era of tinkering with your console to use unapproved accessories is drawing to a close.

    I asked for a photo of the controller, and I’m not surprised it didn’t work, given the included adapter looks like something you get for free at the bottom of a box of cereal.

    we have received player feedback concerning these products when used on Xbox consoles (the latest OS version 10.0.25398.2266. released on 10/16) during online gameplay.

    Brook Gaming’s statement highlights a series of issues that have been plaguing third-party, unlicensed accessories, particularly since the rollout of console build 10.0.25398.2266, which was released on October 16.

    As of right now, we haven’t seen any evidence that these types of accessories will be affected by the recent changes since Xbox has historically been unable to detect them, but we’re investigating.

    Our sources indicate that Microsoft is lifting restrictions on the ability for third-party hardware manufacturers to build wireless accessories for Xbox Series X|S devices.


    The original article contains 1,026 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 84%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • @[email protected]
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    522 years ago

    So goodbye custom-built accessibility controllers? Little Timmy, who was born with no arms and loves video games but has to play with his feet on a custom controller, is going to be told “Git good stumpy”?

    • @[email protected]
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      242 years ago

      Microsoft does make a special controller for people with disabilities. Still sucks for people with custom setups. The cheating in fps games is out of control though

      • nik0
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        122 years ago

        Does cheating in games justify downright deactivating custom accessories?

        • Draconic NEO
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          162 years ago

          In my opinion absolutely not but the gaming community tends to give a lot of leeway towards companies rolling out so called “anti-cheat” solutions, even if they are downright scary i.e. asking users to install always on rootkits, or in this case, anti-consumer by forcing people to buy first or second party controllers.

          I’ve even heard people in other situations suggest that anti-cheat systems should have surveillance systems like the ones done on remote exams, which would be downright dystopian and would be a privacy and security nightmare, all for a fucking video game WTF?

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        Given that Xbox is a closed console, couldn’t they just have rootkit anticheat by default?

        Maybe I’m stuck in the past but it still seems as if consoles still don’t employ anticheats.

        • Draconic NEO
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          62 years ago

          They could and probably do (might even be the same anti-hacking system which bans from xbox live from the Xbox 360 days) they aren’t doing this to combat cheating though, they’re doing it because it’ll make them more money. They might claim it’s anti-cheat because the gaming community will drink up that response and respect their decision without questioning it.

          Many people who do stand up against descisions like these are usually laughed at or accused of being cheaters, I bet people might even do it to me because I posted this.

          I will say that this will likely be all but a setback for cheat devices who can spoof or pass-through an official controller, they will adapt, this change will only truly be successful at killing third party controller support.

          • @[email protected]
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            32 years ago

            You’re not wrong. And unless the controllers have some sort of TPM module in them then yeah they’ll be easily bypassed.

            • Draconic NEO
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              12 years ago

              Legacy official controllers don’t have a TPM so even if new ones do, current ones don’t and same goes for ones that spoof current official controllers.

              At least assuming they’re going to keep compatibility with current official Xbox controllers.

      • English Mobster
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        122 years ago

        The array of different disabilities is so vast - a controller which works for one player may not work for another.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          great point, example there are two way to make a controller for 1 armed people, for the left hand and right hand.

        • @[email protected]
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          2 years ago

          The adaptive controller is designed to be custom-modded for different disabilities.

          It’s actually a really cool system they designed in partnership with AbleGamers. They even have a mod for quadriplegic gamers. And it’s super affordable versus previous accessible interfaces.

          Accessibility is one of the few places where Microsoft has been wholly good in recent years. Play any first-party Xbox game from the last few years, and you’ll see that the first menu that opens up first time you play is accessibility settings.

      • Cethin
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        212 years ago

        On PC you can do whatever the hell you want with your hardware and people aren’t asking to ban it to prevent cheating. This is such a dumb excuse. Build some good anti-cheat or stop complaining. This isn’t the solution.

        • Free Palestine 🇵🇸
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          32 years ago

          On PC you can do whatever the hell you want with your hardware

          And if you install Linux, you can even to whatever the hell you want with your software

        • @[email protected]
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          32 years ago

          I get it, but whatever is being done in the PC ecosystem isn’t really solving the problem either. The last bastion of cheating in the console space is 3rd party controllers. Banning them is going to be way more effective than any anti cheat software.

          If I was using an unapproved controller I’d probably be pissed, but how big is that market outside of people cheating? Aren’t most 3rd party controllers approved devices anyways?

    • paraphrand
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      182 years ago

      I mean, yeah, it’s true historically that first party has been generally better in quality. Going all the way back. But that does not mean it’s cool to block third party accessories.

      • @[email protected]
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        52 years ago

        They aren’t blocking 3rd party accessories. They’e blocking UNLICENSED 3rd party accessories. Different beast.

        • @[email protected]
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          202 years ago

          Basically just means anything that is even mildly competitive in terms of price. Any licensed third party gear is the exact same price as the official accessories.

          I’m not sure why you are defending moves clearly meant to fuck the consumer.

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            Because selling consumers cheap trash that they have to replace multiple times is worse for them than charging a higher price for a licensed product.

            We’ve been over this across multiple generations. 3rd party controllers, 3rd party memory cards, they all sucked. Cheap? Yes. Very cheap, but if they’re half the price and you have to replace them 3 times, they stop being cheap.

            Not that some official products are any better, the Elite controllers continue to be garbage and have spawned class action lawsuits.

            • @[email protected]
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              82 years ago

              Nowadays there are many 3rd party options that are better than any official offerings. Especially considering no 1st party has made the switch to hall effect joysticks.

              • @[email protected]
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                12 years ago

                I picked up this one about 6 mo ago and it’s been fantastic. My favorite controller by far. I’m waiting for them to make joycons and they’ll be an immediate buy.

                • @[email protected]
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                  22 years ago

                  Nah they’ll most likely find a work around, can’t imagine the check being hard to clear unless they are planning to add hardware identifiers and make all old official controllers obsolete.

            • @[email protected]
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              22 years ago

              I don’t need Microsoft telling me how to spend my money and they were definitely some good quality 3rd party stuff.

              Honestly, I’ve seen a clear drop in quality since Microsoft killed or bought most of their competition for the official products. I didn’t use to replace my remotes (3rd party or official) but now I need to at least once a year with the official ones which are now also three times the price.

              Microsoft doesn’t care about you, they actively hate you. You are money bag they suck on. No matter what the boot says, less competition is ALWAYS bad for the consumer.

    • @[email protected]
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      492 years ago

      Call me old-fashioned, but I think the free market offers an adequate solution for this—customers can tell for themselves which third-party accessories are bad and not buy them. Microsoft shouldn’t purposefully render them unusable. If you want guaranteed support, you’re always free to choose an official product.

      • @[email protected]
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        42 years ago

        Except the controllers who are doing external scripting are the best selling 3rd party controllers. So the free market has been pretty clear in that they don’t care if it’s a good product, they only care if it gives them an unfair advantage.

        Letting the free market continue to regulate this means no change from the horrific state of controller based cheating that exists right now.

        • @[email protected]
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          42 years ago

          If PC players and PC games can handle cheating without needing to resort to banning third-party controllers, I see no reason that Microsoft magically needs to do so.

          • @[email protected]
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            12 years ago

            They’re just not widely used on pc. They can be, they just haven’t been adopted by cheaters as much on pc vs console.

            Microsoft should have banned these controllers years ago tbh. There’s no way for game developers to reliably ban players using them. The problem is that they haven’t been able to handle cheating up to this point.

            • @[email protected]
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              12 years ago

              I do not find this argument very convincing. There are much harder-to-detect ways to cheat on PC and yet anti-cheat systems remain fairly effective. Remember that an XBOX is, from a software standpoint, just a Windows computer with far less functionality and some tweaks for performance. There are black-box cheat detection techniques.

              There is no way you can paint this move as pro-consumer. It’s an anti-consumer move with some positive side effects.

              • @[email protected]
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                12 years ago

                Anti-cheats aren’t very effective on PC. For example EasyAntiCheat us known to be the easiest to bypass. These aren’t software level cheats, they’re hardware level and then translating inputs into new “valid” looking inputs. This is next to impossible to detect from client or server side. That’s why this has to be done.

                No black box cheat detection has been widely worked out yet. Multiple games have tried to varying degrees of success, about this issue particularly. It hasn’t worked, that’s why more extreme measures are now being taken.

                There’s no downside other than shitty controllers and cheating controllers being taken off the market.

                • @[email protected]
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                  12 years ago

                  Regardless of any amount of argumentation, the end result is that cheating on PC isn’t really that big of a problem.

                  Sometimes people want to use “shitty controllers” though. They’re much cheaper than official ones and in many cases work just as well. In my case, I have a $25 controller I bought off Amazon for my Nintendo Switch that also works for my PC and has RBG lighting and wired/wireless dual mode. It in all respects is better than a $70 official Nintendo controller and I suspect it’s the same for XBOX.

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        They really can’t though. Which is why the article shows a shitty controller somebody bought on Wish.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        “Xbox’s policy”, we aren’t talking about PC. But yeah, once you get away from the name brands, a large portion of PC controllers are garbage as well.

    • @[email protected]
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      192 years ago

      Just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean other people don’t.

      As a kid I had no hope of affording the official PlayStation racing wheel, but I could afford the MadCatz one. When I wanted a 2nd guitar controller to play with friends on the PS2, NYKO offered a wireless one that was much better than the official ones. My first wireless controller, before the WaveBird, was a MadCatz PS2 controller that was fantastic.

      I spent a good chunk of this weekend researching 3rd party JoyCons because the ones from Nintendo are basically cheap novelty toys that sell for $80.

      8BitDo have been making quality controllers for several years now, and they have a whole section of their website dedicated to Xbox stuff. They appear to be licensed, so they will probably still be good?

      Especially with how expensive 1st party controllers are, it can make a ton of sense to get cheap 3rd party ones. Especially if you aren’t into hardcore or competitive games.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          Haha thanks that’s actually what I went with.

          I went with the Wizard because I always thought the GameCube controller was fine. Not my favorite, not terrible. But I’m at least familiar with it. I saw some reviews mention that the QA and build quality might be a problem, and if that’s the case my next option is probably to try the Hyperion Pro.

          Honestly I wish I could rip the controls off the Steam Deck or rip a DualSense in half.

    • @[email protected]
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      32 years ago

      There are lots of great ones and lots of bad ones. As a consumer, you have options.

      This is nothing more than another pointless revenue stream for Microsoft that the consumer will ultimately pay for, much like Apple and Lightning.

  • @[email protected]
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    15
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    2 years ago

    Going to have a controversial opinion here, but as someone who primarily plays competitive FPS games this is a huge win. Strike Packs have been dominating console lobbies for years now. Controllers that do scripting won’t work anymore, and that’s a massive W.

    It’s not universally good, and they’ll need to expand the authorization program, but imo it’s well worth it to ban the cheaters using 3rd party controllers.

    Edit: Downvote as much as you want. I’m fed up dealing with console players cheating with controllers they can buy from walmart. This is a huge positive for anyone who wants people to stop cheating.

      • @[email protected]
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        122 years ago

        Most software cheats do. Hardware cheats are much more common on console. Strike Packs can be bought at the local Walmart. There’s no barrier to entry at all.

    • @[email protected]
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      62 years ago

      If this is why, great. Microsoft needs to get out in front of this though, otherwise a bad look when they don’t need one.

  • @[email protected]
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    522 years ago

    Ah yes the infamous and completely utterly useless 0x8 hex Microsoft errors.

    If I had a nickel for every time I encountered one, I’d have paid Microsoft to properly document what they actually mean, instead of spending 2 years finding some ye olde ass archived help request where some ancient wizard sys admin gives the answer after the default and also equally useless MSFT Associate reply of “Did you try DISM or try to reinstall windows?”

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      By the way the poor ms employee probably doesn’t know what any of them mean they were just generated by ms devs in the other MS building 63 floors below ground where they use infrared light to grow new developers in the bill gates sacred soil

      • Daniel
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        22 years ago

        There is also a GUI version, errlookup, it’s included as apart of Visual Studio (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\Tools\errlookup.exe) – I’m sure there are other was of getting it too.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      A lot of the answerers who do that are paid per-answer (with a bonus for accepting) iirc, so they’re incentivised to essentially auto-reply.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      I mean to be fair, those errors arent really meant for you (the end user) in the first place.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        oh it doesn’t work? You definitely need to run

        chkdsk c: /f
        

        Wait this doesn’t work either? Then download our utterly useless software that will only run chkdsk while showing you ads and has a paywall after you click “apply” because it’s a fake “free” app that does nothing targeted to your grandma and step uncle

    • Carlos Solís
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      62 years ago

      As a user of third-party controllers on the PS4: yup, the DualShock 4 security is a pain. And the DualSense security hasn’t been cracked yet - the closest gadget I’ve found actually uses Remote Play to bypass the authentication requirement.

  • @[email protected]
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    412 years ago

    Where was this outrage when Xbox blocked the ability to use third party headsets? This just seems like a continuation of their long-held policy and is likely only happening now that they have their accessibility controller on the market.

  • Free Palestine 🇵🇸
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    122 years ago

    Nowadays Consoles are just locked down, consumer-hostile PCs with many unnecessary artificial limitations. Get an actual PC and install Linux on it, that way you have the freedom to do whatever the fuck you want with both your hardware and your software. Probably the only console that respects its users is the Steam Deck, which also runs Linux. Most games work really well on Linux, and it’s constantly improving. Also check out [email protected]

  • @[email protected]
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    752 years ago

    “it’s all just for your protection!” I’m amazed that people actually believe this shit. That’s the same argument as with various countries fighting against CSAM, seeing that as an excuse for total privacy invasion. Like come on…

    • @[email protected]
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      92 years ago

      No one believes it, but in the world of PR you just go with the thing people are least likely to argue against or most likely believe “for the children” or “because safety”. PR doesn’t really even matter when you’re so enormous.

      I never gamed on console because I like more control over my environment…and that started 25 years ago. Super glad they were just approved to buy Activision/Blizzard, “more choice” was what their grinning exec said in a consolidation purchase.

  • BmeBenji (he/him)
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    912 years ago

    The optimist in me says “maybe this is just to prevent cheaters from using XIM and Cronus and it’ll be cheap and easy for other manufacturers to get authorized”

    The pessimist in me says “so Microsoft is going to charge a shitton for authorization… great”

    The realist in me says “I play on PC”

    • @[email protected]
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      52 years ago

      If a game can be cheated by using a 3rd party controller then the only skill involved in the game is how fast you can press the buttons, so who cares?

      • BmeBenji (he/him)
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        12 years ago

        I disagree with your premise there. Using a controller that requires absolute input (a mouse) while your opponents use a controller that requires relative input (a joystick) gives you a leg up but it doesn’t remove skill altogether. Using a mouse still requires skill, but it’s easier to learn to use well.

    • @[email protected]
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      292 years ago

      Can’t wait for Windows 12 rolling out error code 0x35EF00DA - Unauthorized mouse detected

      • BmeBenji (he/him)
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        2 years ago

        I’m relatively confident that Microsoft understands its only leg up on Apple is that its ecosystem isn’t a walled garden.

          • Uglyhead
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            2 years ago

            Dualbooting Linux on Macbooks: the answer to gaming on Apple silicon everyone has been wanting.

        • @[email protected]
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          22 years ago

          it’s = a contraction for “it is” its = possessive

          It’s the opposite of what you’d think.

          I don’t mean to grammar nazi you. This is one I had wrong for 3/4 of my life so I’m just trying to help ya out.

  • @[email protected]
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    102 years ago

    Get a Steam Deck and use any Controller you want ;) (including the corresponding controller glyphs for many games)