I’m no professional gamer. I know this. I also know that I probably don’t need a controller like the new Xbox One Elite controller. I knew I wanted one though and get one I did. When it arrived, I was pretty excited to see what the talk about professional controllers really meant. The one word that immediately comes to mind when I think about the Xbox One Elite Controller is this. “Quality”.

The quality of this product is immediately evident when opening the box and staring back at you is not a plastic controller in a molded plastic bed. No. What you see is a black nylon hardshell zip up case with the XBox logo emblazoned on the front. Below that is USB cable that also feels far superior in quality when compared to about 99% of the other USB charge cables and you get a set of AA batteries… Wait.. What?!? No rechargeable battery pack? Fine. That’s something I was able to overlook for the time being. I had saved the best for last and needed to get at that controller.

After unzipping the case, I’m greeted by a sleek and sexy looking black and silver controller (seriously no color even on the face buttons Just shades of grey)staring back at me with piece of foam between the hand grips housing 2 more sets of thumb sticks, one set curved at the top similar to the Sony Dual Shock and taller than standard Xbox and a standard looking Dpad. When picking up the controller in my hand for the first time I could immediately feel that this was not your typical Xbox controller. From it’s weight, to the rubberized grips to the satin like finish on the remainder of the controller the strong magnetization of the swapable metal components this controller was the nicest controller I’d ever laid hands on.

The metal paddles on the underside of the controller never made much sense to me but after trying it out for a little bit, I can already see why pro gamers prefer a configuration such as this as it allows them to keep moving with their sticks and firing with the paddles without having to stop moving one way or the other. For sure an advantage to those who participate in lots of competitive fragging. It takes some time to figure it out and admittedly I wasn’t doing really great with it but I plan to get back to trying them out more in the future.

Wrapping up, the Elite Controller for Xbox One is amazing. The finish, the packaging and configuration all screams “high quality”. If you aren’t an elite competitive gamer this controller may not be for you. And that’s OK. It retails for $149.99USD and that’s one hell of a high cost for a regular every day gamer but if you, like me, enjoy some of the finer things in life (more expensive beers and wines to name a few) you just might be able to justify the expense as the last controller you buy for the Xbox One. There is one thing to mention as I kinda glossed over it at the beginning. The simple fact that a $150+ controller doesn’t come with a rechargeable battery is something of an oversight that shouldn’t have happened and that happens to be one and only thing preventing the controller from getting a perfect 10 out of 10 score.

Feed Your Console gives the XBox One Elite Controller a 9.5 out of 10.