We now have reason to believe that Microsoft is still working on their leaked Sebile controller.
Sebile was leaked alongside Brooklyn and Ellewood last September 2023, which were the potential mid-generation upgrades for the Xbox Series line of consoles.
We know that these leaks are real because Microsoft themselves unwittingly made them public, in the course of serving legal requirements in their FTC case over their Activision deal. Since then, Microsoft revealed that some of those leaked plans had changed. Of course, they did not elaborate on which of those plans specifically changed and to what extent.
At the start of this year, Tom Warren revealed on the XboxEra podcast that Microsoft was releasing a new Xbox controller in May 2024. That rumor did not turn out to be true, but without saying so directly, it seemed that Tom was hinting at that new controller being Sebile.
Over the holidays, Jez Corden confirmed that Microsoft is, in fact, still working on Sebile. However, what he now knows is that this new controller may now be planned to be the controller for the potential tenth generation of Xbox consoles.
While that piece of news may be disappointing, it may also be somewhat predictable. That leaked controller promised to have haptic feedback, a feature that isn’t available for the Xbox Series consoles now. And while Xbox Series owners would want to get more features, it may be too much work to push the updates necessary to make it happen.
Speaking of haptic feedback, Jez also addressed a newly discovered patent which was clearly for said Sebile controllers. Jez describes an interesting feature found in those patents:
“Microsoft wants to retain the ergonomic feel of the existing range of Xbox controllers, but it seems that the grips also house new haptic motors that can direct “high definition” impulses. The patent describes how the new motors are spread throughout the device, and should actuate consistently irrespective of how the player moves the housing of the controller.
The patent describes how the pulses and vibrations can be tuned to mimic a wide variety of sounds and motions, and can even move independently of the controller’s housing. Crucially, it also suggests that the haptic motors will be able to mimic previous-style vibrations for backwards compatibility purposes, eliminating the need for developers to intervene to make their games work on the new controller.”
The potential applications to this technology are broader than you may first think. For example, this Sebile controller could simulate the force feedback effect racing gamers get from direct drive racing wheels.
Subsequently, this feedback mechanism could be a new way to provide built in accessibility options for differently abled players. What would be nice to have for some players could be a huge boon to a smaller group of players who will suddenly feel a little bit more included.
With all that said, this is all speculation on what this technology could be used for now. We’ll see if Microsoft turns out to follow through and confirm all these rumors in a few years from now.
