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Phat controller: for very unofficial Xbox One gamepad compatibility on PC, step this way

Xbox One

Xbox 360 controllers quickly became the standard PC gamepad once they were made Windows compatible – because why wouldn’t you use the controller Microsoft’s console division have spent thousands of hours washing against, like waves against pebbles, until it fit the natural grooves of human hands?

Right now, though, we’re in that awkward period where a new alternative exists that Microsoft haven’t yet developed the right drivers for. In the meantime, there’s a slightly wonky homebrew solution we can turn to.

Lucas Assis, whose dulcet tones you can hear in the video above, developed the solution in under a day – and released it after a “high number” of people began clamouring for it. Find the driver here.

“It works,” he writes, “and it works great – but it’s not really that easy to install.”

Installation involves downloading two open-source, adware free programs, detailed in the video. Beyond those, Assis recommends XPadder for assigning keys to the pad, or x360ce for XInput games – though he won’t support the latter himself.

“Don’t even ask me about it,” he says. “x360ce is actually the most buggy app I have ever tinkered with. I don’t want this problem in my life.”

Somewhere in the mix of USB drivers and controller emulation, though, workable controller support emerges. Apparently.

Mac and Linux support is “probably” on the way. Let us know how you get on, yeah?