Xbox's new policy — say goodbye to unofficial accessories from November thanks to error '0x82d60002'
windowscentral.com
Xbox's new policy — say goodbye to unofficial accessories from November thanks to error '0x82d60002'::Got error 0x82d60002 on your Xbox accessory? There's no fix, Xbox is going to block the use of detected unauthorized accessories with its consoles from November 12, 2023.
“Made for Xbox” branding for proprietary accessories approved by Microsoft incoming. Anything else won’t work.
How hypocritical of MS to pull this on their consumers after making it such a big deal that competitors like Apple do this same thing. Pot meet Kettle.
Anyone surprised? MS is one of the shadiest companies out there. Google gathering user data? "Don't get scroogled!" Microsoft account required for windows 11? That's completely different. Gamers in particular just fell for their self-imposed image as the good guys because of Game pass and constantly bashing their competitors.
If I remember correctly, it was them first charging for online services under Xbox Live Gold for functionality that was usually free on PC.
And free on PlayStation at the time, but sony thought it was so good they'd copy it
Wait, wait... people claimed they were the good guys? I'm not sure I've ever seen that.
Did they?
Going way back to the beginnings of both companies, yes. Apple had the ‘walled garden’, where the idea was that you were safer with all things ‘Apple Approved’.
Microsoft and most of the industry went the other way at the time and MS grew exponentially.
The optimist in me says “maybe this is just to prevent cheaters from using XIM and Cronus and it’ll be cheap and easy for other manufacturers to get authorized”
The pessimist in me says “so Microsoft is going to charge a shitton for authorization… great”
The realist in me says “I play on PC”
Can't wait for Windows 12 rolling out error code 0x35EF00DA - Unauthorized mouse detected
I’m relatively confident that Microsoft understands its only leg up on Apple is that its ecosystem isn’t a walled garden.
Also, thanks to Valve, gaming on Linux is getting so much easier
Dualbooting Linux on Macbooks: the answer to gaming on Apple silicon everyone has been wanting.
it’s = a contraction for “it is” its = possessive
It’s the opposite of what you’d think.
I don’t mean to grammar nazi you. This is one I had wrong for 3/4 of my life so I’m just trying to help ya out.
My bad. I’ve been really tired the last few days lol. Thanks
Just use a razer mouse, it doesn't need any help from windows to stop working
Linux bb
If a game can be cheated by using a 3rd party controller then the only skill involved in the game is how fast you can press the buttons, so who cares?
I disagree with your premise there. Using a controller that requires absolute input (a mouse) while your opponents use a controller that requires relative input (a joystick) gives you a leg up but it doesn’t remove skill altogether. Using a mouse still requires skill, but it’s easier to learn to use well.
"First time?"
"it's all just for your protection!" I'm amazed that people actually believe this shit. That's the same argument as with various countries fighting against CSAM, seeing that as an excuse for total privacy invasion. Like come on...
No one believes it, but in the world of PR you just go with the thing people are least likely to argue against or most likely believe "for the children" or "because safety". PR doesn't really even matter when you're so enormous.
I never gamed on console because I like more control over my environment...and that started 25 years ago. Super glad they were just approved to buy Activision/Blizzard, "more choice" was what their grinning exec said in a consolidation purchase.
If they can get rid of Cronus devices, I'm fine with it honestly
Ah yes the infamous and completely utterly useless 0x8 hex Microsoft errors.
If I had a nickel for every time I encountered one, I'd have paid Microsoft to properly document what they actually mean, instead of spending 2 years finding some ye olde ass archived help request where some ancient wizard sys admin gives the answer after the default and also equally useless MSFT Associate reply of "Did you try DISM or try to reinstall windows?"
sfc /scannow
oh it doesn't work? You definitely need to run
Wait this doesn't work either? Then download our utterly useless software that will only run chkdsk while showing you ads and has a paywall after you click "apply" because it's a fake "free" app that does nothing targeted to your grandma and step uncle
By the way the poor ms employee probably doesn't know what any of them mean they were just generated by ms devs in the other MS building 63 floors below ground where they use infrared light to grow new developers in the bill gates sacred soil
May I present to you, a tool called Err
There is also a GUI version, errlookup, it’s included as apart of Visual Studio (
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\Common7\Tools\errlookup.exe) – I’m sure there are other was of getting it too.A lot of the answerers who do that are paid per-answer (with a bonus for accepting) iirc, so they're incentivised to essentially auto-reply.
I mean to be fair, those errors arent really meant for you (the end user) in the first place.
So goodbye custom-built accessibility controllers? Little Timmy, who was born with no arms and loves video games but has to play with his feet on a custom controller, is going to be told "Git good stumpy"?
Microsoft does make a special controller for people with disabilities. Still sucks for people with custom setups. The cheating in fps games is out of control though
On PC you can do whatever the hell you want with your hardware and people aren't asking to ban it to prevent cheating. This is such a dumb excuse. Build some good anti-cheat or stop complaining. This isn't the solution.
And if you install Linux, you can even to whatever the hell you want with your software
I get it, but whatever is being done in the PC ecosystem isn't really solving the problem either. The last bastion of cheating in the console space is 3rd party controllers. Banning them is going to be way more effective than any anti cheat software.
If I was using an unapproved controller I'd probably be pissed, but how big is that market outside of people cheating? Aren't most 3rd party controllers approved devices anyways?
The array of different disabilities is so vast - a controller which works for one player may not work for another.
The adaptive controller is designed to be custom-modded for different disabilities.
It's actually a really cool system they designed in partnership with AbleGamers. They even have a mod for quadriplegic gamers. And it's super affordable versus previous accessible interfaces.
Accessibility is one of the few places where Microsoft has been wholly good in recent years. Play any first-party Xbox game from the last few years, and you'll see that the first menu that opens up first time you play is accessibility settings.
The Xbox Adaptive Controller is a device that lets you build your own custom controller that fits your specific needs. It's actually really neat
interesting but I don't see that working for some people, example 1 armed gamers
Configurable lol.
Yes it is
great point, example there are two way to make a controller for 1 armed people, for the left hand and right hand.
Does cheating in games justify downright deactivating custom accessories?
In my opinion absolutely not but the gaming community tends to give a lot of leeway towards companies rolling out so called "anti-cheat" solutions, even if they are downright scary i.e. asking users to install always on rootkits, or in this case, anti-consumer by forcing people to buy first or second party controllers.
I've even heard people in other situations suggest that anti-cheat systems should have surveillance systems like the ones done on remote exams, which would be downright dystopian and would be a privacy and security nightmare, all for a fucking video game WTF?
Given that Xbox is a closed console, couldn't they just have rootkit anticheat by default?
Maybe I'm stuck in the past but it still seems as if consoles still don't employ anticheats.
They could and probably do (might even be the same anti-hacking system which bans from xbox live from the Xbox 360 days) they aren't doing this to combat cheating though, they're doing it because it'll make them more money. They might claim it's anti-cheat because the gaming community will drink up that response and respect their decision without questioning it.
Many people who do stand up against descisions like these are usually laughed at or accused of being cheaters, I bet people might even do it to me because I posted this.
I will say that this will likely be all but a setback for cheat devices who can spoof or pass-through an official controller, they will adapt, this change will only truly be successful at killing third party controller support.
You're not wrong. And unless the controllers have some sort of TPM module in them then yeah they'll be easily bypassed.
Legacy official controllers don't have a TPM so even if new ones do, current ones don't and same goes for ones that spoof current official controllers.
At least assuming they're going to keep compatibility with current official Xbox controllers.
sounds like it
Another attack on ownership. The user is the only one who can authorize an accessory being used with their hardware.
Where was this outrage when Xbox blocked the ability to use third party headsets? This just seems like a continuation of their long-held policy and is likely only happening now that they have their accessibility controller on the market.
So we're back to the DRM machine dream of Xbox One.
Just hook up a gaming pc to tv and play there with any controller.
They've already nuked driver support for certain "unauthorized" 3rd party Xbox accessories out of windows 10 and higher, so this isn't necessarily a solution for the average user either
I'm gonna say the L word
I had to really try my best not to
This doesnt work anymore? https://github.com/InputMapper
It may, but it would still require the driver for the device to be allowed to install on windows.
First example that comes to mind is a bit older but the unauthorized replicas of the Xbox 360 wireless adapters can no longer be used with Windows 10+ without the following steps
Same vendor, doing ugly things like always. I say Draugr OS or Chimera OS. Even Space Engineers runs now and with better FPS too.
Just wanted to mention that Linux has great support for almost any hardware. You don't even have to install drivers, thanks to its monolithic kernel.
This is true, but my comment was for the average user. I run Linux on a couple systems (not including my servers), but if I put my partner infront of it, I'd be providing support every day for a year. It's far better than it used to be but outside of steamos, I don't think it's "average user" ready yet
That sounds like a good deal, one year of tech support to get your partner to use Linux, I would immediately do it
I think XIM and Cronus are the reason they're doing this, especially since the main games on Xbox are shooters.
Cronus allows you to run scripts which give you an unfair competitive advantage, from using exploits and humanly impossible controller inputs to fire weapons ultra fast, to removing weapon recoil, to going auto-prone when you fire your weapon, to quickscoping, to other things.
XIM on the other hand lets you plug in a mouse and keyboard. While this allows you to play games on console that otherwise don't support M&K controls, it also gives you serious unfair competitive advantages by making the console think you're a gamepad player whilst giving you superior M&K controls and aim assist at the same time. With a XIM device you can go seal clubbing in console-only lobbies.
My other hypothesis is that they want to safeguard their console from firmware exploits that could bust the security of their console wide-open and allow for software piracy.
I don't have an Xbox but I love that mouse and keyboard are considered cheating devices.
Reminds me of FFXI, where the devs considered Alt-Tabbing on PC cheating thus made it deliberately crash to desktop.
I remember having to install a hack for that it was so ridiculous.
especially since games in gamepass for pc let you play with console players
The enshittification is getting worse
i feel like the EU will fight this, but it still might not matter for NA users
Nowadays Consoles are just locked down, consumer-hostile PCs with many unnecessary artificial limitations. Get an actual PC and install Linux on it, that way you have the freedom to do whatever the fuck you want with both your hardware and your software. Probably the only console that respects its users is the Steam Deck, which also runs Linux. Most games work really well on Linux, and it's constantly improving. Also check out !linux_gaming@lemmy.ml
Get a Steam Deck and use any Controller you want ;) (including the corresponding controller glyphs for many games)
This surely can't be legal? Right? Right?
What a shitty move, glad I use PC/SD
They can 0x82d60002 Deez nutz
Honestly surprised they allowed them in the first place.
Pretty sure Sony don't.
As a user of third-party controllers on the PS4: yup, the DualShock 4 security is a pain. And the DualSense security hasn't been cracked yet - the closest gadget I've found actually uses Remote Play to bypass the authentication requirement.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In a significant development for Xbox users, the era of tinkering with your console to use unapproved accessories is drawing to a close.
I asked for a photo of the controller, and I'm not surprised it didn't work, given the included adapter looks like something you get for free at the bottom of a box of cereal.
we have received player feedback concerning these products when used on Xbox consoles (the latest OS version 10.0.25398.2266. released on 10/16) during online gameplay.
Brook Gaming's statement highlights a series of issues that have been plaguing third-party, unlicensed accessories, particularly since the rollout of console build 10.0.25398.2266, which was released on October 16.
As of right now, we haven't seen any evidence that these types of accessories will be affected by the recent changes since Xbox has historically been unable to detect them, but we're investigating.
Our sources indicate that Microsoft is lifting restrictions on the ability for third-party hardware manufacturers to build wireless accessories for Xbox Series X|S devices.
The original article contains 1,026 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 84%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Going to have a controversial opinion here, but as someone who primarily plays competitive FPS games this is a huge win. Strike Packs have been dominating console lobbies for years now. Controllers that do scripting won’t work anymore, and that’s a massive W.
It’s not universally good, and they’ll need to expand the authorization program, but imo it’s well worth it to ban the cheaters using 3rd party controllers.
Edit: Downvote as much as you want. I’m fed up dealing with console players cheating with controllers they can buy from walmart. This is a huge positive for anyone who wants people to stop cheating.
If this is why, great. Microsoft needs to get out in front of this though, otherwise a bad look when they don’t need one.
most cheating comes from pc
Most software cheats do. Hardware cheats are much more common on console. Strike Packs can be bought at the local Walmart. There’s no barrier to entry at all.
Historically, 3rd party accessories on all platforms have been garbage. Glad to see them cracking down. There are rare exceptions like this Atari 2600 joystick:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAC-2
I have a pair that must be almost 40 years old now, still work!
Call me old-fashioned, but I think the free market offers an adequate solution for this—customers can tell for themselves which third-party accessories are bad and not buy them. Microsoft shouldn't purposefully render them unusable. If you want guaranteed support, you're always free to choose an official product.
Except the controllers who are doing external scripting are the best selling 3rd party controllers. So the free market has been pretty clear in that they don’t care if it’s a good product, they only care if it gives them an unfair advantage.
Letting the free market continue to regulate this means no change from the horrific state of controller based cheating that exists right now.
If PC players and PC games can handle cheating without needing to resort to banning third-party controllers, I see no reason that Microsoft magically needs to do so.
They’re just not widely used on pc. They can be, they just haven’t been adopted by cheaters as much on pc vs console.
Microsoft should have banned these controllers years ago tbh. There’s no way for game developers to reliably ban players using them. The problem is that they haven’t been able to handle cheating up to this point.
I do not find this argument very convincing. There are much harder-to-detect ways to cheat on PC and yet anti-cheat systems remain fairly effective. Remember that an XBOX is, from a software standpoint, just a Windows computer with far less functionality and some tweaks for performance. There are black-box cheat detection techniques.
There is no way you can paint this move as pro-consumer. It's an anti-consumer move with some positive side effects.
Anti-cheats aren’t very effective on PC. For example EasyAntiCheat us known to be the easiest to bypass. These aren’t software level cheats, they’re hardware level and then translating inputs into new “valid” looking inputs. This is next to impossible to detect from client or server side. That’s why this has to be done.
No black box cheat detection has been widely worked out yet. Multiple games have tried to varying degrees of success, about this issue particularly. It hasn’t worked, that’s why more extreme measures are now being taken.
There’s no downside other than shitty controllers and cheating controllers being taken off the market.
Regardless of any amount of argumentation, the end result is that cheating on PC isn't really that big of a problem.
Sometimes people want to use "shitty controllers" though. They're much cheaper than official ones and in many cases work just as well. In my case, I have a $25 controller I bought off Amazon for my Nintendo Switch that also works for my PC and has RBG lighting and wired/wireless dual mode. It in all respects is better than a $70 official Nintendo controller and I suspect it's the same for XBOX.
They really can't though. Which is why the article shows a shitty controller somebody bought on Wish.
The PC has... No official accessories mate
"Xbox's policy", we aren't talking about PC. But yeah, once you get away from the name brands, a large portion of PC controllers are garbage as well.
"all platforms" because apparently you can't read your own posts.
Just because you don't like them doesn't mean other people don't.
As a kid I had no hope of affording the official PlayStation racing wheel, but I could afford the MadCatz one. When I wanted a 2nd guitar controller to play with friends on the PS2, NYKO offered a wireless one that was much better than the official ones. My first wireless controller, before the WaveBird, was a MadCatz PS2 controller that was fantastic.
I spent a good chunk of this weekend researching 3rd party JoyCons because the ones from Nintendo are basically cheap novelty toys that sell for $80.
8BitDo have been making quality controllers for several years now, and they have a whole section of their website dedicated to Xbox stuff. They appear to be licensed, so they will probably still be good?
Especially with how expensive 1st party controllers are, it can make a ton of sense to get cheap 3rd party ones. Especially if you aren't into hardcore or competitive games.
NYXI makes dope joycons. definetely give them a look.
Haha thanks that's actually what I went with.
I went with the Wizard because I always thought the GameCube controller was fine. Not my favorite, not terrible. But I'm at least familiar with it. I saw some reviews mention that the QA and build quality might be a problem, and if that's the case my next option is probably to try the Hyperion Pro.
Honestly I wish I could rip the controls off the Steam Deck or rip a DualSense in half.
I mean, yeah, it’s true historically that first party has been generally better in quality. Going all the way back. But that does not mean it’s cool to block third party accessories.
Drift on official controllers disagrees.
They aren't blocking 3rd party accessories. They'e blocking UNLICENSED 3rd party accessories. Different beast.
Basically just means anything that is even mildly competitive in terms of price. Any licensed third party gear is the exact same price as the official accessories.
I'm not sure why you are defending moves clearly meant to fuck the consumer.
Because selling consumers cheap trash that they have to replace multiple times is worse for them than charging a higher price for a licensed product.
We've been over this across multiple generations. 3rd party controllers, 3rd party memory cards, they all sucked. Cheap? Yes. Very cheap, but if they're half the price and you have to replace them 3 times, they stop being cheap.
Not that some official products are any better, the Elite controllers continue to be garbage and have spawned class action lawsuits.
Nowadays there are many 3rd party options that are better than any official offerings. Especially considering no 1st party has made the switch to hall effect joysticks.
I picked up this one about 6 mo ago and it's been fantastic. My favorite controller by far. I'm waiting for them to make joycons and they'll be an immediate buy.
And I'd imagine they'll be willing to go through licensing.
Nah they'll most likely find a work around, can't imagine the check being hard to clear unless they are planning to add hardware identifiers and make all old official controllers obsolete.
I don't need Microsoft telling me how to spend my money and they were definitely some good quality 3rd party stuff.
Honestly, I've seen a clear drop in quality since Microsoft killed or bought most of their competition for the official products. I didn't use to replace my remotes (3rd party or official) but now I need to at least once a year with the official ones which are now also three times the price.
Microsoft doesn't care about you, they actively hate you. You are money bag they suck on. No matter what the boot says, less competition is ALWAYS bad for the consumer.
There are lots of great ones and lots of bad ones. As a consumer, you have options.
This is nothing more than another pointless revenue stream for Microsoft that the consumer will ultimately pay for, much like Apple and Lightning.