While the Xbox Wireless Controller is one of the most popular controllers around, the more premium Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 offers an even better experience. You can check your wireless signal strength on the Xbox One console: Press the Xbox button to open the guide. Select Profile & system Settings General Network settings. Select Test network speed & statistics. Xbox Wireless devices can be connected to an Xbox One system using the 'Sync' button located on the front of the console. Over on PC, connecting Xbox Wireless accessories is a little more challenging. Video Games PS4 Xbox One Switch Wii U PC 3DS PS3 Xbox 360 Accessories Virtual Reality Trade-In Deals Best Sellers More Gaming Xbox One Consoles.
Microsoft's Xbox One lineup might have been succeeded by the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, but it's still a fantastic purchase for fans of console gaming. The premium Xbox One X is still a beast of a console, capable of 4K gaming at high refresh rates. Combined with some of the best Xbox One accessories to come out over the past few years, it offers one of the best console gaming experiences of all time.
From basics like a second controller and external hard drive to niche products like fighting sticks and carrying cases, here are the best Xbox One accessories you can buy!
Still don't have an Xbox One? Prices are lower than ever on Xbox One bundles and games.
Best Xbox One accessories:
Editor's note: We'll be updating this list of the best Xbox One accessories regularly as new ones launch and old ones are retired.
1. Xbox One Play and Charge Kit
If there is one Xbox One accessory that everyone needs, it's an Xbox One Play and Charge Kit. Instead of having to buy new AA batteries for your controller every time it dies, you can just plug it in for a few hours and you're good to go. Over time both your wallet and the planet will thank you.
With a single charge lasting for 30 hours of gameplay and a full recharge taking just four hours, you should never have to worry about running out of juice in the middle of a tense match.
The only downside is that it charges via a dated mini-USB port, but the included nine-foot cable is long enough that you can play and charge at the same time. If you are looking for an even cheaper option, you can get this dock with two battery packs, although they won't last as long and you can't charge while playing.
2. Xbox Wireless Controller
The next item on our list of the best Xbox One accessories is another basic requirement: a second controller. Couch co-op is one of the best ways to enjoy console gaming with friends or family. Even if you prefer single player games, having a second controller ensures you always have one charged and ready to play.
The latest version of the Xbox Wireless Controller has a larger range than previous versions, and supports Bluetooth for use with a Windows PC or tablet of any kind. There's also a handy 3.5mm headset jack on the bottom of the controller, which is perfect for communicating with your teammates in online play.
3. Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2
Xbox Wireless Console
While the Xbox Wireless Controller is one of the most popular controllers around, the more premium Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 offers an even better experience. It has all the same features as its cheaper cousin, with lots of extras like a built-in rechargeable battery, replaceable thumbsticks and d-pads, and shorter hair trigger locks.
For those looking to play games competitively online, the Elite Series 2 is the absolute best Xbox One controller on the market. It even comes with a carrying case to easily take it with you to a friend's house or LAN tournament. That said, it retails for three times the price of the standard controller, making it one of the most expensive Xbox One accessories on our list.
4. Razer Atrox Arcade Stick
While the Elite Series 2 controller d-pad is great for fighting games, true aficionados know that nothing can compete with a full arcade fighting stick. These can range from budget options like the Mayflash F300 to more expensive options like the limited Hori Real Arcade Pro Tekken 7 Edition, but for your money the best Xbox fight stick is the Razer Atrox Arcade Stick.
It isn't cheap, but this Xbox One accessory comes with premium Sanwa hardware to give you the perfect arcade-quality experience wherever you play. The out-of-the-box configuration won't disappoint even hardcore fans, but those looking to customize the Razer Atrox will find that it's more than ready for tinkering. The top opens at the push of a button, making it one of the easiest arcade sticks to mod. In fact, Razer encourages this, and doing so will not void your warranty.
5. USA GEAR Console Carrying Case
If you're someone who can't leave home without your Xbox One, this accessory is just what you need. With a padded interior and compartments for cables and two controllers, this carrying case will keep your Xbox One or Xbox One X safe while traveling between destinations.
What's great about this particular carrying case is that the interior compartments can be completely rearranged to fit whatever Xbox One accessories you have. It can fit extra controllers (including the Elite Series 2 hard case), external hard drives, headsets, and more without danger of breakage or scratches. It comes in two colors: black and Xbox green.
6. WD 4TB Elements Hard Drive
As your Xbox One game collection grows, you will inevitably run into storage issues with the console's limited capacity. Fortunately, it's easy and relatively inexpensive to pick up and external hard drive.
This 4TB option from WD is small in stature but spacious enough to fit well over 30 of your favorite Xbox One games in full 4K quality. For those with a limited library, there is a slightly cheaper 2TB model that might be a better fit for you.
7. Xbox Live Gold subscription
Online multiplayer truly revolutionized gaming when it was introduced more than two decades ago, and although Xbox Live now has a free version you still need to pay for Xbox Live Gold to actually play games online. That said, a paid membership has far more benefits than just online gaming.
With an active Xbox Live Gold subscription, you gain access to up to four free games every month. These remain in your library as long as your subscription is active, and over the course of a year this can add up to hundreds of dollars of free games. On top of this, you'll gain access to exclusive discounts on digital game downloads.
The fastest and safest way to subscribe is with a digital code, and you can get increments of three-, six, or 12-months below. If you want an even bigger library, consider upgrading to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for instant access to more than 100 games and Microsoft's new cloud gaming platform Xbox cloud gaming (formerly called Project xCloud).
8. HyperX Cloud Alpha II headset
The last item on our list of the best Xbox One accessories lets you communicate with your teammates on Xbox Live. There are a number of gaming headsets that will work with your Xbox One, but our pick is the follow up to the already fantastic HyperX Cloud Alpha.
Stream xbox on android. It might not have extra bells and whistles, but the HyperX Cloud Alpha II is the best headset you can get for less than $100. Comfortable enough for extended gaming sessions, it offers fantastic 7.1 virtual surround sound and convenient in-line mic controls to quickly mute yourself or adjust the volume.
That's it for our list of the must-have Xbox One accessories! We'll update this post with new options once they launch.
After eight long years, we have finally met the Xbox 360's successor: The Xbox One. While console makers never give away all of their secrets, we have cobbled together enough data from the official unveil, Q&A panels with various Microsoft execs, and statements issued by Microsoft that we now have a good idea of the software and hardware inside the Xbox One. Read on for details of the Xbox One's hardware, software, and some analysis of the Xbox One's pre-owned games controversy.
The Xbox One's hardware specs
The Xbox One is powered by an 8-core x86 AMD CPU (almost certainly based on AMD's Kabini), and a GPU that's very similar to the Radeon 7790. There's 8GB of DDR3 RAM (shared between the CPU and GPU), 32MB of very fast SRAM on the graphics die, and a total of 200GB of memory bandwidth (more on that later). There's also some new silicon in Kinect 2.0, which will come with the Xbox One as standard, which we've covered in a separate story. Rounding out the hardware, there's a Blu-ray drive, 500GB hard drive, 802.11n WiFi (with WiFi Direct), HDMI in and out, Gigabit Ethernet (yay!), and USB 3.0. There'll be three 802.11n radios, so that the console can connect to your gamepads (WiFi Direct), mobile devices, and home network without added latency.
Xbox One hardware diagram. Note the ports on the back.
So far, so good — but, when you take a closer look, it's clear that there's still a lot of unanswered questions. Before the unveil yesterday, it was widely believed that the Xbox One's SoC would feature eight AMD Jaguar cores — just like the PS4. The problem is, Jaguar (and its accompanying GCN GPUs) are 28nm parts — and yet, according to some journalists who got an exclusive peek at the Xbox One, Microsoft says the SoC is based on a 40nm process. It's entirely possible that AMD somehow backported its 28nm parts to 40nm, but owing to the significant differences between the processes this would've been a very costly and time consuming task. It's worth noting that we don't have confirmation that the PS4 uses a 28nm chip, either. (Updated: The latest information seems to be that Microsoft got it wrong, and that it is in fact a 28nm SoC, just like Kabini.)
When it comes to the memory bandwidth, the Xbox One has 68GB/sec of main memory (8GB DDR3) bandwidth, 102GB/sec of bandwidth to the embedded SRAM (32MB), with the last 30GB/sec probably between the CPU and GPU, or perhaps between the CPU and peripherals (gamepads, Kinect, cable TV). This is a much more complicated setup than the PS4, which just has 176GB/sec of unified main memory (8GB GDDR5) bandwidth, usable by both the GPU and CPU. The real-world difference will probably be minor — though I would say that the PS4 probably has the edge, as developers don't need to pay special heed to the Xbox One's fast-but-small SRAM.
For a more detailed breakdown of the Xbox One's hardware, we'll have to wait until the console has been released and reverse engineered by enterprising hackers and crackers — or, if we're lucky, Microsoft might release more information at E3.
The Xbox One's software: Apps, games, and pre-owned games controversy
Perhaps for the first time in console history, the Xbox One unveil, and the Q&A panels that followed, focused more on the software than the hardware. Almost the entirety of the unveil showcased how first-party apps (Skype, NFL, Internet Explorer) will interact with your games, movies, and TV channels.
When it comes to games, the only real features that Microsoft discussed were Smart Match and Game DVR. Game DVR keeps a rolling record of your recent gameplay (so you don't have to remember to press record!), and allows you to share it with your friends via social networks. Smart Match is a new matchmaking system, which presumably developers can tap into, instead of creating their own matchmaking system.
And then there's the pre-owned games controversy. Adobe acrobat 8 standard trial. With the Xbox One, all games are fully installed to an internal, unremovable hard drive. The plus side is that you don't need to hunt for the game disc whenever you want to play a game — but, on the negative side, Microsoft says you'll have to pay a fee to install a game a second time, on another console. Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't been very clear about how big this fee will actually be; some reports suggest that that the fee will be as large as the game's original price.
This, as you have probably guessed, is intended to cripple the pre-owned games market. While there have been a few official Microsoft statements over the last few days, the latest is this: 'While there have been many potential scenarios discussed, today we have only confirmed that we designed Xbox One to enable our customers to trade-in and resell games at retail. Beyond that, we have not confirmed any specific scenarios.'
Three operating systems in one
According to Microsoft, the Xbox One runs three different operating systems. There's a core operating system that's based on Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor technology, which boots up when you turn the console on. Download windows 10 iso latest version. This hypervisor then boots up two further operating systems: Xbox OS, which runs the games, and an OS that's based on Windows 8, which runs the apps (Skype, TV, etc.)
The Xbox OS and Windows-based OS run side-by-side, on hardware that's virtualized by the hypervisor. Both OSes are permanently switched on and constantly rendering their video output, to enable instant switching/snapping between games and apps/TV. The Xbox OS is rebooted whenever you load a game, but the Windows-based OS is persistent until you turn the console off. It isn't clear how the hardware resources are split between the two virtualized OSes, but hopefully the Xbox OS (games) gets most of the RAM and GPU time.
Xbox One Console Gamestop
This is a very interesting and potentially very powerful setup. I actually speculated about the Xbox One running Windows 8 way back in July 2011. At the time, I theorized that Microsoft would develop a single OS (Windows 8) and interface (Metro) that unifies every form factor, from desktop, to tablet, to smartphone, to console. While I was only half right, it's clear from the various demos, photos, and videos that the Xbox One will look and feel like a Windows 8 device. The grid-like Metro design language is there, snapping is there, the fonts are the same. While we'll probably have to wait until the Build developer conference to find out more, it is also very likely that apps developed for Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 will run on the Xbox One with minimal modification.
Xbox One Console Wireless Hardware Switch
With the switch from a PowerPC CPU in the Xbox 360 to x86 in the Xbox One, it might also simplify the development and porting of games between Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and Xbox One. We have almost no details on the Xbox One's gaming OS, but it's possible that it's also been rejigged to share more of the Windows 8 kernel.
In short, the unification between all form factors is virtually complete. In theory, this is very exciting for Microsoft, consumers, and developers. In practice, Microsoft now needs to get off its ass and shift a ton of devices so that consumers and developers can actually take advantage of this utopian unified interface and ecosystem.
Now read: Xbox One vs. PS4 vs. PC: How the hardware specs compare
