Microsoft Bringing Xbox Series X|S Controller Features To Last-Gen Controllers

Microsoft is adding next-gen con­troller fea­tures for old­er Xbox con­trollers, but only for some Xbox Insid­ers. This was announced in a blog post, stat­ing the new firmware will allow old­er Xbox con­trollers to use fea­tures that were only pre­vi­ous­ly used on the Xbox Series X|S controllers.

The firmware update applies to Xbox One con­trollers with Blue­tooth Sup­port, Xbox Elite Wire­less Con­troller Series 2, and Xbox Adap­tive Con­trollers. Gen­er­al­ly, it adds bet­ter cross-device Blue­tooth con­nec­tiv­i­ty and reduced laten­cy. The cross-device Blue­tooth con­nec­tiv­i­ty uses Blue­tooth Low ener­gy, allow­ing for bet­ter con­nec­tions to PCs, iOS, and Android devices (that sup­port it of course). The con­troller can also remem­ber one Blue­tooth device and one Xbox con­sole, which allows peo­ple to switch between the two devices by dou­ble-tap­ping the sync button.

The list­ed con­trollers are also get­ting Dynam­ic Laten­cy Input sup­port on Xbox Series X|S. This tech­nol­o­gy deliv­ers con­troller inputs to the con­sole more effec­tive­ly, reduc­ing laten­cy while play­ing. Both of these fea­tures are already avail­able in Xbox Series X|S con­trollers. This update is avail­able for Alpha Skip-Ahead and Alpha mem­bers of the Xbox Insid­er Program.