2023 has been a year of baffling decisions, whether it’s the fact that the industry itself is making more money than ever while suffering unprecedented layoffs and studio closures, or companies like Unity trying to angle for more money than ever. On the surface, Microsoft’s decision to nuke third-party accessories on the Xbox doesn’t sound like the worst decision in the world, but in truth, it’s doing more harm than good.
Over the past few weeks, many Xbox users have been reporting seeing an error message regarding their third-party accessories, with the message noting that the user would only have two weeks to use their current accessory before it’d be blocked from the console. Many assumed this was a malfunction, but a recent update to a Microsoft support page confirms it. The support page states: “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).”
On the one hand, this sounds like a broadly positive change for the Xbox ecosystem, as we’ve spoken in the past about how people use XIM-like hardware and accessories to give themselves advantages in multiplayer shooters like Rainbow Six Siege. Eliminating unfair advantages always sounds like a great idea, even if the timing of this update is interesting. Microsoft haven’t done much to combat erroneous XIM users before, but now that they’ve completed their acquisition of Activision Blizzard, meaning they own two massive multiplayer shooters in Call of Duty and Overwatch 2, they’re suddenly quick to swing the banhammer. It could just be pure happenstance, but it’s still a funny coincidence nonetheless.
That being said, it feels like Microsoft are throwing the baby out with the bathwater with this policy change. For starters, a lot of prominent members of the fighting game community have pointed out that this change affects a lot of fight stick manufacturers. Many pro players or fighting game enthusiasts swear by fight sticks over “official” hardware like regular controllers, meaning any potential growth of the FGC on Xbox isn’t going to happen. Xbox is already struggling when it comes to its fighting game reputation, as the PlayStation 4 dominated that genre last generation, and this isn’t going to help.
However, the real victims of this change are those who need accessibility options to play their favourite games. There are a whole host of third-party tools that players can use to give themselves the same functionality as a regular controller, but because of various disabilities or issues, they need the additional help to play video games. This policy change nukes all of that into the ground.
The real stinger here though is that Microsoft have tried to make strides in terms of accessibility with their own proprietary controller, but the problem with accessibility is that there’s no one solution to the problem. Forcing multiple communities of people to use just the one option feels like the most Apple decision that Microsoft have made in a long time, so it’s no wonder that people are upset.
In the course of writing and proofing this article, Microsoft did confirm that this policy change would have no effect on peripherals that currently connect to the Xbox Adaptive Controller, meaning third party accessories that work with that controller would still work. While it’s good that there’s a solution for any third-party accessories people might already own, having to buy an additional controller to do so just feels like a money-grabbing move from Microsoft.
Again, the goal of reducing egregious uses of third-party hardware to gain a competitive advantage in shooters is a noble one, but the cost that it’s coming at here is too much. Hopefully, Xbox comes to a different solution, or announces plans to approve a lot of the accessories that aren’t causing problems without forcing them to purchase the Xbox Accessibility Controller, because otherwise this is a big stain on Xbox’s public image.
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