Microsoft wants you carrying an Xbox controller the size of a TV remote, and today it put a price on that convenience: forty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, for the smallest gamepad the company has ever shipped. It's called the Xbox Nano Controller, and it measures a little over five inches and weighs 3.5 ounces, lighter than the phone already in your pocket. According to Xbox Wire, it still packs all 18 standard gameplay inputs, a rechargeable battery, and an extra programmable Action Button you can set up for screenshots or capture.

Pre-orders went live today, with the thing actually shipping in November across a long list of countries, the US and UK included. It connects over Xbox Wireless and Bluetooth, which sounds fine until you remember what that controller is supposedly built for. Windows Central points out the Nano has no direct WiFi connection for Xbox Cloud Gaming, which is exactly the use case Microsoft is selling it for, and leans on wireless protocols that are laggier by comparison. Same outlet also notes there's no Hall Effect or TMR tech in the thumbsticks, the stuff that actually stops a stick from drifting a year in. At fifty bucks, that's a strange thing to skip. One channel covering the launch, Jorebza, frames it plainly: built primarily for cloud streaming and on-the-go play across phones, smart TVs, and consoles. Fine goal. Just make sure the hardware backs it up.

There's a nostalgia angle here too, Windows Central clocked the shape as pure SNES throwback, and I get the appeal: something small, simple, no bulk. But nostalgia doesn't excuse a budget controller priced like it isn't one.

Microsoft is also bundling the Nano into two holiday deals in the US. Buy a select Samsung TV and you get the controller plus two months of Game Pass Ultimate for new members, tied into the Xbox app running through Samsung's own Gaming Hub. Buy a Meta Quest and you get the same pairing, controller and two free months, aimed at cloud gaming on a headset. Translate that out of marketing speak and it's a cheap accessory and a short trial subscription, dressed up as a gift, meant to get you spending real money on Game Pass once the free months run out.

This lands not long after a leak out of Microsoft's own design lab showed the company still chasing PlayStation with its next premium pad. The Nano is the other end of that same bet, cheap and small instead of expensive and loaded. Microsoft's credit with me stays exactly where it was before this announcement: held open, spent only once I've actually got one of these in my hands and it hasn't let me down mid-match.