It looks like Microsoft is cooking up some fresh gear, with leaks suggesting two new Xbox controllers are on the horizon. Word on the street is that we are getting a brand-new pad built specifically for cloud gaming alongside the next premium controller, the Xbox Elite Series 3.
Regulatory images spotted by Brazilian site Tecnoblog give us a proper look at the cloud gaming controller, which is set to arrive in sleek black and white variants. Design-wise, it is a bit smaller and more rectangular than your standard Xbox pad, featuring shorter grips but keeping the familiar layout of sticks, triggers, and face buttons. Under the hood, it is packing dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.3, and a USB-C port.
The interesting thing here is that it connects directly to Xbox Cloud Gaming over Wi-Fi, which should seriously cut down on latency since your inputs do not have to route through a phone or TV first. Interestingly, Microsoft is ditching AA batteries here for a built-in 500mAh rechargeable pack, powered by a Realtek chipset and a dual-core Arm Cortex-A7 to handle everything on-device.
Then there is the heavy hitter: the Xbox Elite Series 3. It keeps a lot of the premium features that Series 2 owners love, like the matte black finish, rubberised grips, removable rear paddles, lockable triggers, and swappable analogue sticks.
However, Microsoft has added two intriguing new buttons on the front that look exactly like mouse scroll wheels. Placed just below the D-pad and right stick, these could be used for extra in-game actions or for tweaking your controller settings on the fly.
Battery is also getting a shake-up on the Elite Series 3. Microsoft is moving to a removable, rechargeable battery pack for quick swaps, entirely skipping the traditional AA route. Even though the capacity is technically lower than the previous model, dropping from 2050mAh to 1528mAh, a more modern, power-efficient chipset should mean you won’t actually notice a drop in battery life.
Plus, it gets its own dedicated cloud button, letting you jump between local play and a direct Wi-Fi cloud connection to keep lag to an absolute minimum.
As you might expect with early regulatory leaks, there is no official word on pricing or a release date just yet, but we will be keeping a close eye out for when Microsoft makes these controllers official.