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You can now play games on your PC via an Xbox One controller

With the necessary drivers, you can connect the Xbox One's controller to your Windows PC to play supported games.

Lance Whitney Contributing Writer
Lance Whitney is a freelance technology writer and trainer and a former IT professional. He's written for Time, CNET, PCMag, and several other publications. He's the author of two tech books--one on Windows and another on LinkedIn.
Lance Whitney

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The Xbox One controller can now talk to your PC. Sarah Tew/CNET

Your Xbox One controller can now perform double-duty as a game controller for your PC.

The wizardry comes courtesy of new Windows drivers that support the Xbox One controller on a Windows PC, Microsoft's Larry Hryb, aka Major Nelson, revealed Thursday. The drivers are now available for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows and also will be packaged as part of a future Windows update.

Xbox One gamers had apparently been clamoring for PC support, according to Major Nelson. Xbox 360 owners have long been able to use their controller on a PC. But the Xbox One controller offers a few advantages over its predecessor, most notably an improved D-pad that allows for greater movement.

To enable the support on your PC, download and install the necessary drivers for your version of Windows. You can then connect your Xbox One controller to your PC through a microUSB cable.

So does this mean you can play just any game on your PC using the Xbox One controller? No, not quite. The new PC drivers will allow the Xbox One controller to talk to any game that features gamepad support for the Xbox 360 controller. Wikipedia offers a list of just such games.

(Via The Verge)