Xbox controllers have come in many shapes and forms and Microsoft is going to continue doing that. We have seen plans of a controller with braille markings on it for a Xbox console emerge. But the biggest problem that we have had with all of these controllers is that once the next generation of consoles is out, the controllers, no matter how limited edition they might be, become of no use. Phil Spencer is thinking of a solution for this, that will be implemented on Xbox Scarlett.
In an interview with Gamespot, Phil Spencer had this to say.
Another thing that will be a little bit new for us is the fact that we want to also respect the compatibility of the controllers that you already have. This generation, we came out with the Elite controller, we’ve done work on controllers and people have invested in personalized controllers, the things that they love and we want to make those compatible with future generations of our console as well. So really, the things that you’ve bought from us, whether the games or the controllers that you’re using, we want to make sure those are future compatible with the highest fidelity version of our console, which at that time will obviously be the one we’ve just launched.
This means that after Xbox Scarlett launches, there’s a possibility that you can use your Xbox 360 or Xbox One controller on Xbox Scarlett. This would definitely bring down the cost of gaming, as old hardware can be used for new consoles.
He also talked about cross gen play and how backward compatibility was something that had received a lot of positive feedback.
We really like the reception and the use that we’ve seen through the [Xbox One backwards compatibility] program. Making sure that all four generations of content–so the original Xbox games that run on your Xbox One today, the OG Xbox; the 360 games that run on your Xbox One; your Xbox One games; and the new generation games–all run on the next platform is important to us. We want to respect the games that you’ve bought from us. We want to make sure that the generations can play with each other, so if you happen to adopt the next generation early and somebody stays back, that if their games are on both platforms, you’ll be able to cross-gen play.
He didn’t announce a release date though so we will have to wait for that.
