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Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

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Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#111
post #94
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So should they just give up on cheating devices?

When it comes at the expense of legitimate user freedom, and is arguably useless? Probably.

Buy a gaming pc if you want freedom

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#112

> players have been encountering error “0x82d60002” OT: Microsoft should be banned by decree from showing naked error codes to people, I've been fighting them for decades now

Error codes are specific and can be looked up. The modern trend of "uwu we fucky-wucked up" cutesy error messages with no details whatsoever is inexcusable because of how much harder it makes to troubleshoot the error.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#113

> players have been encountering error “0x82d60002” OT: Microsoft should be banned by decree from showing naked error codes to people, I've been fighting them for decades now

if I had to pick between error code and text meesage, I'll pick error code.

why? localization fragments search results.

I've seen a lot of people struggling to solve their Linux issues because they were searching for errors and logs in spanish and search results are several orders of magnitude off.

of course, both are better.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#114
post #85

> players have been encountering error “0x82d60002” OT: Microsoft should be banned by decree from showing naked error codes to people, I've been fighting them for decades now

This. Serving cryptic error codes over issues that do have a proper wording is a big no.

  “Using unauthorised accessories compromises your gaming experience. For this reason, the unauthorised accessory will be blocked from use on 11/12/2023,” read the pop-up on the console. It then advised the player to return the product to the store or talk to the manufacturer.
It seems the proper wording is displayed along the code, though, just the article elaborates later. If you think the existence of such code itself is the problem, you're just trying to make someone's life needlessly slow and harder.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#115
So I guess they'll be blocking their accessibility controller? You know, the officially sold Microsoft Xbox accessory that lets you arbitrarily map inputs to any other controller you have sitting around? To preserve the console experience?

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#116
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes at the expense of legitimate user freedom, and is arguably useless? Probably.

Buy a gaming pc if you want freedom

you are on hacker news

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#117
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least you can google for the error code, instead of having to search for a textual phrase and wade through countless pages of not-at-all-related crap.

> At least you can google for the error code And find what information? Try turning it off and on again, update & reboot, then clean the registry?

On contrary, incorrectly typed generic error message leads to that types of boilerplate. Numeric error code correctly entered and searched usually leads to either description of exact widespread problem and workaround, or absolutely nothing, very binary and efficient.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#118

> players have been encountering error “0x82d60002” OT: Microsoft should be banned by decree from showing naked error codes to people, I've been fighting them for decades now

No. The exact opposite. I'm sick of modern software telling me "something went wrong, try again later".

Unless every possible error scenario gets its own descriptive error, that error code is a necessity. And nobody is going to accept a dev adding error messages to every possible error, because localisation to 180+ languages will cost a fortune. Your choice is between "something went wrong" and "something went wrong 0x82939470". The first one is ungoogleable and useless, the second one will have resolutions on forums within a month of appearing.

Sure, I'd like every message to be descriptive towarsa the user, but that simply won't happen. Microsoft has an extensive API for formatting error codes already and if they pop up a 0xsomething, that means they were never going to bother with adding a descriptive message at all.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#119

> players have been encountering error “0x82d60002” OT: Microsoft should be banned by decree from showing naked error codes to people, I've been fighting them for decades now

IMO there is a right place for error codes such as this; in failure states that are too technical to explain to the intended audience, and for which diagnosis can be complex (so that dominant causes can be different from version to version). The other way these things fail that I think is common is to give no explanation and direct the troubleshooter to the logging system.

Re: Xbox will block third-party controllers to "preserve the console experience"

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even worse, localized error messages. Good luck trying to 1:1 translate it back to English while remotely troubleshooting issues on your parents' computer.

Just write clear and explicit error message (like “Not a valid Microsoft controller”), you shouldn't need to Google it in the first place! You should still add an error code, so that people can look for additional documentation about the error on your official doc, but having obscure errors and assuming people will look on Google to see if someone on reddit or stackoverflow has more idea about what the problem could…

Your choice is a) "0x82d60002: Using unauthorised accessories compromises your ..." or b) "Error: Using unauthorised accessories ..."

There is no c) "Not a valid Microsoft controller" option. Which one between a) or b) is more likely to lead to resolution? Note, Microsoft also offers phone and/or chat support to Xbox users.

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