Xbox Nano Controller Can Reportedly Skip the Console Entirely

Didn't Xbox watch Google's cloud controller die in real time?

According to DayOne, citing The Verge's Tom Warren, the tiny Xbox Nano controller carries a feature Microsoft hasn't shouted about: it can reportedly connect straight to Xbox's cloud services without routing through a console at all. That's not an official announcement. It's a reported detail from a single report, so treat it as such until Microsoft says otherwise, because nothing here has been confirmed by the company itself.

Credit where it's due, because a controller that talks directly to the cloud is genuinely clever hardware, the kind of trick that makes sense if you're chasing people who stream games on a phone or a TV dongle and never touch a disc drive. I'll give Xbox that one, grudgingly, before getting back to the point.

The pitch is familiar because Google already ran it. The Stadia controller could connect directly to Stadia's cloud the same way, right up until Google shut the whole project down and turned a neat party trick into a cautionary tale. So what's Xbox's next move here, copy the one part of Stadia that worked or copy the part where the whole thing gets switched off a few years later?

Unclear.

This also lands days after this site covered the Xbox Nano Controller itself, and the unboxing from Parris put the hardware in front of people before Microsoft had fully explained what it does. A tiny controller that doesn't need a console nearby is a bet on cloud gaming's future, and the company making that bet is the same one that still hasn't told anyone why its own COO left after three months. Build the cloud dream first, maybe sort out the rest of the house after.