I was watching Bill Gates’ CES keynote today and Justin Hutchinson, group product manager of Windows Client at Microsoft, demonstrated some Vista features that I hadn’t seen before.
Hutchinson controlled a live.com Virtual Earth 3D fly-over of Las Vegas with an Xbox 360 controller (There was tepid applause). Chris just got an Xbox 360 for Christmas and we’ve been playing Gears of War and Lara Croft Tomb Raider LEGEND, so I thought at least we can get our money’s worth using the Xbox 360 controller on our PCs.
I found drivers for Vista and XP at Microsoft downloads. Microsoft has an KB article on How to connect an Xbox 360 Controller for Windows to a computer. Unfortunately, the Xbox 360 Wireless Controller must need a dongle to work with a PC
David,
When you say “plug and play” kit, do you mean the Xbox 360 Play & Charge Kit? The Play & Charge kit is a rechargeable battery and a cable that you plug into the controller port – so it essentially turns your wireless controller into a wired controller so you can play and charge the battery.
Microsoft has software updates for game controllers on XP and Vista.
So what you need is the Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows and the two software updates, one for the Xbox 360 Controller for Windows and the other for Xbox Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows.
So Not even by using the “plug and play kit” that comes with the xbox 360 to plug into the USB port on the computer wouldn’t support the 2.4ghz needed? also i was on Google and i found an article and it was linked to an official microsoft site which had software that you need to download to use the controller “or so it said”
David,
In this case, I used the term dongle as something that plugs into your PC that can communicate with the wireless controller. Since PCs don’t have a 2.4GHz receiver (the way the wireless Xbox controller communicates with the Xbox 360) you need a receiver on your PC.
I don’t know if Microsoft just released the Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows – I hadn’t seen it before on xbox.com. I know it was announced in May 2006 at E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) along with some Xbox games that will run on Vista. The reciever is priced at US$ 19.99.
Hey i read your article because i aswell have a Xbox 360 and i recently have tried connecting my controller to my PC except i have no idea how to do it. In your articel it says the controler must need a dongle to work with a PC? what exactly is a Dongle?