For individuals who will not know it, Xbox Design and style Lab is a high quality way to order a personalized Xbox controller.
You are capable to pick out and tailor made the colors for practically each section of your controller, and even have the selection to engrave a title or a gamertag on the controller if you wish to.
Introduced in 2016, the Xbox Design Lab was temporarily halted for the very first time in Oct 2020, ahead of resuming production once again on 17 June 2021.
This initial suspension was entirely comprehensible as Microsoft’s Xbox Sequence X and S had been introduced in November 2020, enabling Microsoft to changeover the Design and style Lab for next-gen controller customisation.
But there had been some really serious teething concerns with putting an order all through this period of time.
Some users have reportedly had their controller orders cancelled, and there weren’t any solutions for end users in Asia to obtain them.
The Layout Lab was then mysteriously taken offline all over again someday previously in 2022.
We at Yahoo Gaming SEA have been surprised when we were being made available the possibility to have a glimpse at the recently current website for the Design Lab that was to be relaunched on 10 June 2022, basically since these custom controllers have been by no means accessible to us in this region, even 6 decades right after launch.
Microsoft then informed us that the new Design and style Lab will be obtainable to 11 new countries not formerly served: Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Slovakia, and Switzerland.
We were also given the chance to then generate a controller for ourselves to test. In the age where you can customise keyboards, addresses and mainly so several various factors of PCs and consoles, acquiring a custom controller would appear like a superior thought.
The present site is pretty uncomplicated and easy to navigate.
You are still capable to combine and match the different preset colours for most of the parts on your controller, even though also possessing the option to include rubber grips to the handles, if you are a sweaty gamer.
There are also a lot more top quality color alternatives for some areas, like the triggers, where by you can pick out metallic colours instead of sound a person. You happen to be also still in a position to engrave text on the controller, if you would like to.
To aid you visualise what your final product will seem like in advance of you validate your order, the web site is equipped to render shots of your controller from all angles.
Be warned, while, all these excess goodies will appreciably rack the cost of your controller up.
By adding metallic buttons, grips and finding an engraving, the custom controller we place jointly price S$130.
For comparison, the primary Xbox Collection X controller retails at S$90. If you genuinely try, you could get a custom controller from the website at that price, as well, with out paying a cent further.
Was the S$40 of customisations on the personalized controller that I requested value it? We will get to that.
Shipping took about two months from the time I positioned my buy.
The controller was shipped in a really secure shipping box, with a ton of foam guarding controller packaging.
The packaging alone is definitely nothing specific, and just feels like a generic Xbox controller packaging that states it’s from the Xbox Style Lab.
In the box, there was only the controller and a pair of AA batteries. There is no USB cable provided.
Up to this working day, I however do not recognize why Xbox does not include things like rechargeable batteries with their controllers, but I guess it is a “expense” issue.
But for individuals that want to use this controller in wired variety, you superior have a spare USB-C to USB-A cable in hand.
The controller alone… is just a regular Xbox controller. It genuinely doesn’t feel any distinctive from a regular Xbox controller that you can get off the shelf.
But this also implies that the controller feels sturdy, and there are no apparent rattles or flaws in the construction. It functions perfectly, and functions wonderful out of the box.
As for the colour customisations, it does look really correct to what the render seemed like.
That stated, the added S$40 worthy of of customisations does really feel pretty steep, in particular when you think about that the engraving is little, and the “metallic” buttons are just coated with metallic spray fairly remaining real metal.
I would like I experienced the choice to resize and reposition my engraving. Getting capable to spot a small textual content at only one particular area of the controller does not definitely scream “customisation” to me.
I also wished Microsoft experienced the possibility to increase different things that you could possibly need jointly with the controller.
I individually would have favored to have the choice to include a USB cable, given that it would not come with one particular, and other items like an official licensed Xbox battery although I’m at it.
But, like I talked about before, you can nevertheless customise a exclusive controller appear with out shelling out a one cent far more than $90, if you do not opt for the “premium” choices.
All in all, it is really excellent that we have the possibility in Singapore to at last able to customise our controllers, but there isn’t anything at all distinctive that you are missing out on if you are living in a nation that Microsoft will not ship to.
But with the enlargement to the 11 new nations around the world, Microsoft may well include far more to this list in the upcoming, and could contain other areas in Southeast Asia or much more.
For now, if you are in Taiwan, you might be in luck. Microsoft are looking to open up the Style Lab to Taiwan someday prior to September 2022.
Dominic loves tech and games. When he is not occupied finding headshotted in VALORANT or watercooling just about anything he sees, he does some pro wrestling.
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