While some of the new gaming phones have hardware controls – either on board or as accessories – most handsets out there rely on touch and motion. Those are fine for casual games, but Microsoft believes it can interest serious players with Xbox-like controllers.
This is just a research project for now, but the vision of the team is for Switch-like flexibility. They controllers themselves – analog sticks plus a D-pad or a handful of buttons on each side – are relatively small and they attach to the side of the device (be it phone or tablet).
Additional slide-in grips can be used for…