Xbox Elite 3 leak highlights company's biggest drawback compared to PlayStation

Xbox has had a lot of ups and downs this year, from layoffs en masse to calls for the return of exclusive games.

CEO Asha Sharma recently saw a partial playthrough of The Elder Scrolls VI, but her visit to Bethesda was interrupted by those protesting the aforementioned layoffs.

Xbox is still struggling from a hardware perspective too, and one of the latest supposed leaks has tipped me over the edge.

The Xbox Elite 3 controllers look fine if the leaks are genuine, but it’s missing something

In a since-deleted leak, the Xbox Elite 3 controller could be seen sporting a design very reminiscent of what we’ve seen already.

Slightly sleeker, textured, an odd-looking D-pad; all standard stuff for Xbox’s ‘premium’ controllers.

However, what stood out the most from the images was the back. If the images are genuine, the Xbox Elite 3 will still require batteries to run, either AAs or one of the rechargeable battery packs you can buy online. The latter is often a terrible option too, unless you get one from a decent third-party.

It’s 2026, and Xbox is still relying on batteries to power its controllers, and keep in mind these premium ones cost upwards of $100.

PlayStation, on the other hand, offers its bog-standard controllers with a built-in rechargeable battery pack, and in the several years I’ve owned a PlayStation 4/PlayStation 5, I’ve very rarely had an issue with them.

Xbox really is living in the past in this case. It’s baffling that we’re yet to see an Xbox controller that doesn’t require AA batteries out of the box.

One is supposedly in development, as it was leaked during the Microsoft V FTC trial, but years later we’re yet to see it officially surface.

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Xbox could easily win the next-gen console war if it locks in with controller design

Now that Xbox is clearly looking to get more competitive, after allegedly considering a third-party future under Phil Spencer, it’s high time the company made some smart hardware decisions.

Project Helix is going to be interesting, as while it’ll likely cost a fortune due to the ongoing ‘RAMpocalyse’, it’ll at least have some appeal if the rumours of it being a console/PC hybrid are true.

To further bolster its chances of success, though, a well-put-together controller to act as your faithful gaming companion on Xbox and PC is needed.

This means a controller that ditches the AA batteries and has an internal battery that rarely fails, if at all. PlayStation can keep its nifty DualSense features. Haptic Feedback and Adaptive Triggers don’t make the world go round.

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking. Avoiding internal batteries helps keep the price of new controllers relatively low, and as we’ve seen, Xbox loves a shiny, new controller variant. It practically releases a new limited-edition shell every month.

For premium controllers like the Xbox Elite series, however, it should be more than doable to make them self-sustaining.

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