Xbox One to support up to eight controllers simultaneously

David Tom

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It might seem like a little bit of overkill, but the upcoming Xbox One will support up to eight wireless controllers simultaneously. To put this into perspective, its predecessor allows for up to four local players to game simultaneously, while the PlayStation 3 can support as many as seven. At this point in time, Sony has yet to divulge how many controllers the PlayStation 4 will accomodate.

Although this is a nice feature in principle, it’ll be interesting to see how many game developers actually design for 8-person local multiplayer. After all, for most first-person-shooters, the TV screen is segmented when additional members are added. If acceptable vision is already a problem with four people playing, I can only imagine how unbearable a TV divided into eighths would be.

Despite this issue, the extra controllers could actually come in handy for sports games like Madden of FIFA, where an undivided screen is used and each person controls his or her own character / player.

In addition to this announcement, Microsoft has also revealed that their new wireless controllers will have a 30-foot range.  Another cool add-on is "Impulse Triggers", which will allow players to feel vibrations through the controller's left and right triggers, providing more tactile feedback. Finally, the D-pad has been redesigned to be less clunky, which will reportedly provide an enhanced experience for those playing fighting games.

The Xbox One will be packaged and shipped with just one controller at launch. Microsoft has mentioned that they are trying to find a way to make Xbox 360 controllers compatible with the next-generation console.

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If acceptable vision is already a problem with four people playing, I can only imagine how unbearable a TV divided into eighths would be.

But can the One output to two TVs? You can bet it won't take the residents of a college dorm more than a couple hours after getting one to hook two TVs up in the 'study' room and get 8 people together.
 
Microsoft has mentioned that they are trying to find a way to make Xbox 360 controllers compatible with the next-generation console.

Most exciting part of the article to me!
 
Wait a minute, trying to find a game that supports 4 players today is hard enough, back on PS2 it at least had a couple of good 4 player split screen games, this gen it was all about the online capability, are they going back and supporting proper 4-8 player split screen? If so, that is awesome.

Sony will probably support the same amount of controllers though, what a strange number for PS3 though? 7? why 7? why not round it up to 8?
 
Wait a minute, trying to find a game that supports 4 players today is hard enough, back on PS2 it at least had a couple of good 4 player split screen games, this gen it was all about the online capability, are they going back and supporting proper 4-8 player split screen? If so, that is awesome.

Sony will probably support the same amount of controllers though, what a strange number for PS3 though? 7? why 7? why not round it up to 8?

Sony had 8 player support long before Microsoft (http://us.playstation.com/ps2/accessories/multitap-ps2.html) and dropped it, so don't expect it to ever come to the PS4. This is one of those features that sounds real fun in theory but doesn't really pan out in practice.
 
Sony had 8 player support long before Microsoft (http://us.playstation.com/ps2/accessories/multitap-ps2.html) and dropped it, so don't expect it to ever come to the PS4. This is one of those features that sounds real fun in theory but doesn't really pan out in practice.

But game developers seldom write code for accessories. If it's a part of the core game system then it's usually better supported by developers. Which is why bundling the Kinnect with the XO is a good idea. The one down-side, buying all 8 controllers would cost almost as much as the system itself.

Party games would be uh-may-zing! I'm picturing an epic Bomberman battle :)
 
9Nails True, but I doubt there will be more than a small handful of games that actually support 8 players. Is it a cool feature? Yeah, I guess. But I'm not expecting anything major to come out of it other than a few party games, as you mentioned.
 
Anything more than 4 players on a screen or splitscreen is literally a waste of time unless you have a 100" TV I am guessing you would need around 200-300" TV to make it so your not getting 8 tiny boxes on your TV so you can actually see what your doing and whos in the background.

TBH 8 player splitscreen is massively stupid if this was 2050 where we all had 300" TV's then ye but otherwise no.
 
Microsoft has mentioned that they are trying to find a way to make Xbox 360 controllers compatible with the next-generation console.

Most exciting part of the article to me!
how can this be in any way hard, they work on most pc games, hell I even have a ps2 controller adapter to work on pc, these greedy fkers just want more money
btw the 8 people is amazing, if to scrunched u could use 2 tvs. or have like a driver and shooter in some games think think
 
If only you could trust M$ again after the "always online" fiasco... other than that this would be great.
 
There are TVs out there that can play multiple inputs at the same time. I was installing Dish Network services at a customers house last week, his little girl was playing the WiiU while I was installing the receiver, I thought she was playing on the controller but she was looking at the TV more than the controller. It was a Samsung TV with what I thought were 3d glasses. So, if somehow this feature could be allowed on one input, it would work with one TV... or use two outputs from xbox to TV as if there were two TVs...
 
Sony will probably support the same amount of controllers though, what a strange number for PS3 though? 7? why 7? why not round it up to 8?

I'm pretty sure it can have 8? PS Move has two controllers, x4 players = 8 controllers. The total number of bluetooth devices is even higher.
 
I can't imagine this working too well on anything smaller than 50 inches. I guess this is supposed to convince people they need an 80" television now?
 
I can't imagine this working too well on anything smaller than 50 inches. I guess this is supposed to convince people they need an 80" television now?
Most people have at least 2 tvs one being 40+ inches. So yeah you will likely be able to use 2 tvs...
 
The most games I know that supported a 4+ controllers have been sports games. I used to wonder why there so many controller slots on this old basketball game I played on ps1
 
I can't imagine this working too well on anything smaller than 50 inches. I guess this is supposed to convince people they need an 80" television now?

I was gonna say I can only see this being useful for sports games and you are going to need a fairly large tv for it to be an enjoyable experience 50+ inches!
 
I don't even know how this is going to work. This just sounds like a weird feature, though im curious what games will have 8 way on one console.

7 on PS4 Burty117, that is an odd number for controllers lol.

Well lets all think of it this way, every player can get their own Individual Core from the processor :p
 
The article says 8 controllers maybe not purely limited to 8 joypads?? You ever thought a player could potentially have two control methods each in some games. But yeah 8 players on one screen is a bit over kill and I could see it being very low frame rates so uselsss.
 
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