Microsoft mobile controller prototypes emerge
A patent has also been discovered for rechargeable mobile controllers, designed to fit onto devices while you play.
During an Inside Xbox show earlier this year Microsoft highlighted the potential of their xCloud streaming service by showing Forza off on a mobile device using an Xbox One controller, but according to a report from Windows Central, other control options are being looked into, as you can see via the images below, allegedly taken from Microsoft Research papers:
As you can see, these designs fit with the Xbox design philosophy we've seen with the regular controllers, and these prototypes were builds out of foam and then 3D printed. These are back from 2014, admittedly, but with the work on xCloud and the success of the Switch, these efforts have come back.
What's more is that Windows Latest has also reported on a patent filed by Microsoft in 2017, talking about a "charging device for removable input modules", i.e. mobile controllers similar to what we've seen above.
"The inputs are mapped to software running on the touch-screen computing device and where the touch-screen device is a peripheral (i.e. a touch-screen peripheral device) for a computing device (e.g. a touch-sensitive display for a desktop computer), the inputs are mapped to software running on that computing device," reads the patent description.
Would you be happy with the designs above?