How To Use An Xbox One Controller On PC

Update: Microsoft has released the official PC drivers for the Xbox One controller.

"The new PC drivers will enable the Xbox One controller to be used with any game that featured gamepad support for the Xbox 360 controller," explains Microsoft's Major Nelson. "Simply download the drivers, connect your Xbox One controller to your computer through a micro USB cable and you’ll be gaming in no time."

While the drivers will be part of a Windows update coming soon, you can download the drivers right now through Major Nelson's blog.

Original article: As much flak as Microsoft receives for the blunders associated with the Xbox One, there's one thing that they did and did well right from the start: the new controller kicks major butt... big time butt, complete butt. If that doesn't properly describe to you how good the controller is, I can sum it up with this superlative: The Xbox One controller is righteously awesome.

Now because of this, a lot of people would love to upgrade from the typical wired or wireless Xbox 360 controllers they've been using with their PCs (which are simply plug-n-play compatible, so anyone with a play-and-charge kit and a wireless receiver can simply plug the controller in and you're good to go), but Microsoft doesn't have any plug-n-play drivers available for the Xbox One controller. In result, Xbox One controllers aren't readily compatible with PC.

Another problem is that due to the change in the way the cables work, you'll also need a special micro-USB cable to plug into the controller. And take special note: it's a micro-USB cable not a mini-USB cable. If you try to use the latter it won't work.

Anyway, enterprising software design aficionado Lucas Assis – an enthusiast who modified his own version of X360ce, a software wrapper that allows you use any controller for PC games specifically designed for use only with an Xbox 360 controller – has updated his Xbox 360 controller emulator to better support the Xbox One controller.

If you have a USB compatible cable with a micro-USB plug that fits into your Xbox One controller (and you might have a spare if you have a charging cable for any smartphone that isn't the iPhone 5 or higher). You can simply plug the Xbox One controller into your PC and then proceed to follow the instructions in the video below.

The video above instructs you on how to install the necessary driver so that your PC can actually read the input from the Xbox One controller, as well as how to feed rumble instructions back to the controller.

Of course, you're not quite done just yet.

After installing the Xbox One controller, you'll need to copy over the xbox360ce program or configuration files into the binary folder of the game you would like to use your Xbox One controller with.

As showcased in the video above, you simply copy the necessary contents of the controller files (which should include the executables and configuration settings) and place them in the same directory as the exe files to run the game. For every Unreal Engine-based game (like Borderlands) you'll find it in the “Binaries” folder. For Source Engine games, you'll find it in the “Bin” folder.

For every game you play, you'll need to copy the appropriate xbo360ce files into the folder with the exe file(s) to make use of the Xbox One controller.

You can grab the necessary files right from the description of Lucas Assis' YouTube video description as well as the base driver files from right here. Of course, you'll want to use the method at your own risk. For those of you who live by the rule of caution, you can wait for Microsoft to release an official driver to support the Xbox One controller... but that could be a long ways off.