Coming at only a slightly elevated price point than a store-bought controller, Microsoft offers a wide range of customizable features without sacrificing quality.
It wasn’t long ago that I wrote about the Xbox Design Lab available from Microsoft, which offers customizations for most components of the current Xbox controllers, leading me to share a few designs I came up with while playing around on the site.
Owing to my extensive time spent on Steam gaming as of late, I pulled the trigger on ordering a custom Design Lab controller – one that differed from the three designs I offered in my first piece discussing the feature.
Heading in, my expectations were understandably quite high. After entering the video game world with an embarrasingly large and awkward controller upon the release of the original Xbox in 2001, Microsoft has released a steady stream of excellent controllers, beginning with the S controller that was released later in the original Xbox’s lifespan.
The controller design improved with the Xbox 360 before reaching its current form upon the release of the Xbox One, moving the battery pack to a less conspicuous location while aiding in the overall fit of the average hand on the controller.
With only minor changes between the Xbox One and Xbox Series X, the controller has maintained largely the same form for the last 12+ years – with customers having more options than ever when it comes to creating a unique look for their controller.
Though some custom designs, such as the Sunkissed Pink model that my wife has, did hit store shelves as limited edition models, the possibilities are endless for those utilizing the Xbox Design Lab, which I did for my latest controller.
Straying from the designs I showcased in my previous Xbox Design Lab piece, I went with a combo of all cool colors, adopting a matcha-seafoam green on the face of the controller while opting for an ube-tinted purple on the back, designing the other components around that base.
From there, it really felt like I couldn’t go wrong designing the controller, but I still love where I landed with it. To go along with the cool, more subdued color theme of the controller, I went with white control sticks and center buttons, the latter of which featured grey text on them – an option I enjoyed to avoid the more abrasive white-on-black or black-on-white that are the typical choices.
While there were plenty of opportunities to increase cost with custom-designed faceplates and metallic buttons, I only went with this for the controller’s triggers, which I chose a metallic lavender for – offering just the right degree of contrast from the seafoam faceplate and bumpers to the ube-colored back of the controller.
Perhaps my favorite addition to make for the whole controller was the use of colored buttons, which are typically not utilized on stock Xbox controllers. The result gives the controller just enough color variation without looking like a directionless mess – a fine line to walk when designing these controllers.
As far as how everything actually turned out upon receiving the controller, I honestly couldn’t be happier. While I was initially given a timeline of three-to-four weeks until I would receive the controller after completing the order on June 17, the controller arrived significantly ahead of time, traversing from its assembly near Guangzhou, China to my mailbox in Chico, California by June 29 – taking less than two weeks to arrive.
Prior to receiving my custom controller, I was using a store-bought Electric Volt controller, a vibrant colored gamepad reminiscent of lemon-lime Gatorade that I viewed to be one of the better looking stock controllers available. While I was slightly skeptical that there would be some mechanical hiccups with the custom controller, that hasn’t at all been the case.
The buttons and triggers are feel just as brand-new and seamless as they have on store-bought controllers in the past, alleviating controller quality concerns that have arisen with third-party developers in the past, most notably the controversial Controller Chaos.
While first-party developers are offering more stock customization than ever before, having the third-party level of customization with the Xbox Design Lab along with the first-party performance and product makes this the best official controller customization one could land on in today’s world of gaming.
Though there is certainly more than enough reason to feel trepidation with the Xbox brand at-large, PC and Xbox gamers alike can customize a top-notch, customized controller for just under $100 – a price that’s worth it considering that a standard Xbox controller retails for $64.99 before taxes.
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