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Comment by Crosseye_Jack | Hacker News Reader

Thing is, it won't stop modded controllers / M&K convertors. Sure it will be a speed bump as existing controllers on the market will become paperweights, but modded controllers have been a thing since at least the 360 days, and back then they were just official controllers with a microcontroller soldered in.

The older K&M convertors would require a wired controller to be connected to them so they could pass the auth check.

All it will do is send it back to those days and remove choice for gamers who want to use unofficial controllers for legit reasons such as some of the fighting sticks on the market.

How pissed would we be if MS forced keyboard manufacturers went though validation before they would work in Windows and tried to claim its for the users protection against hardware keyloggers?

EDITED: to give some additional points

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Yes, it would be really easy. You "just" have to be able to buy thousands of official controllers and solder a microcontroller on them. And then resell them. Without getting sued.

Or teach people to solder the microcontroller themselves.

Yes, there will always people cheating no matter what. But as long as you reduce their numbers substantially, it is worth it.

> Yes, it would be really easy. You "just" have to be able to buy thousands of official controllers and solder a microcontroller on them. And then resell them. Without getting sued.

That's exactly what people did back in the day, First-sale doctrine allows for this (Heck some modders I knew back in the day simply brought them in bulk at wholesale). Modders either brought controllers retail, modded them and put a mark up on them, or people would send in their own controller to be modded.

But those selling wired K&M convertors just decided they would pass though the challenge/response commands to a offical wired controller the user would have to purchase themselves (saves the manufacturer the need to purchase them).

> Or teach people to solder the microcontroller themselves.

There were plenty of sites with open source rapid fire microcontroller firmware and install guides for those who didn't want to pay others to mod their controller for them. It was simply VCC, GND, each of the trigger inputs, a connection to the sync button, and a connection to one of the LEDs to give feedback to the user which mode the controller was in. Heck it was on the skill level needed to mod a PS1 and those services were ten a penny. Heck it got to the point where drop in PCBs where being created where castellations on the PCB were in just the right spot to solder.

Not loving the way you steamroll through the already super sensible super easy path & project the ultra hard mode as the only option.

> The older K&M convertors would require a wired controller to be connected to them so they could pass the auth check.

This seems like it'll barely be a speed bump. A bunch of folks will have to get new cheating gear, which will be a temporary reprieve, but most probably will do just that.

Personally I’ve been out of the whole controller modding scene for a while, but the xim devs ( they made one of the first mass market K&M converters) don’t seem too worried about this update because they require the use of an official controller to handle the auth challenge & response.

It seems as of now, MS are only targeting unofficial controllers that circumvent the existing auth check (which some of the full custom built cheat controllers as well as other unofficial 3rd party controllers.

So (imo) it will have very little impact on cheat controllers at all and will mainly affect those who just tried to save a few bucks.

You don't even need to do that: the Xbox Adaptive Controller accepts generic 3.5mm button inputs. So you just need to make an adapter that plugs into that.

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