Earlier today, photos of a new, unannounced Xbox controller leaked after Brazil’s Anatel regulator accidentally shared images of the yet-to-be-revealed gamepad online. And then, a few hours later, the same regulator leaked images of a different, officially not announced Xbox controller. Whoops.
On May 14, Brazilian technology news site Technoblog obtained and posted leaked images of a cloud controller designed specifically to work with Xbox game streaming. The controller is smaller than a normal Xbox gamepad, but includes all the buttons and sticks you’d expect, just arranged in a smaller, cheaper form factor. This is the kind of controller that Xbox expects people to toss in a bag and bring with them on a trip or leave on a table in a room with a TV that can stream games.
In February, The Verge reported that Xbox was developing a streaming controller that would directly connect to games through a wifi connection, similar to how Google Stadia controllers worked with the now-defunct game streaming service. This appears to be that controller. The idea being that a direct wif-fi connection has less latency than a connection via Bluetooth that has to go through a few more steps to reach the game running on a server somewhere off-site.
And then, later on that very same day, Technoblog published photos it obtained showing what appears to be the Xbox Elite 3 controller, which is likely to be a far more expensive pad compared to the leaked cloud streaming controller.
Kotaku has contacted Xbox about the leaked controllers.
The Elite 3 gamepad features an interchangeable d-pad, back paddles, and two extra buttons with yet unknown functions. It also features two new scroll wheels at the bottom of the controller that could be used to tweak controller settings, or perhaps will be a new input method. The Elite 3 will also support cloud streaming via a direct wifi connection, similar to what that other leaked Xbox controller can do. Interestingly, the Elite 3 seems to come with a removable and rechargeable battery, something that you can buy for Xbox controllers separately. (I use a Play and Charge kit and love it.)
We don’t know how much either leaked controller will cost or when they will launch, but with an upcoming Xbox event in June, it seems likely that one or both of these leaked gamepads will be announced and sold in the near future.