We’ve know for a while now that Xbox has been building some sort of new controller, with numerous reports debating its exact nature. At one point, there was mention of a simple controller update that included features like waking your Xbox as soon as you pick up the controller. Later on, as was seemingly confired by The Verge, came rumours of a Cloud controller intended on making it even easier to stream games. Now, we have proof.

Tecnoblog somehow managed to get hold of some images of the new controllers.

The Verge claims the photos come from a Brazilian regulator, although I’m not sure how The Verge knows this.

At a glance, and like Tecnoblog themselves say, the controller resembles 8BitDo’s HyperX Clutch Tanto and SN30 Pro, or even an old-school SNES controller. It’s compact and slim, presumably because it wants to look and feel more portable than a regular Xbox controller. It features all the regular buttons, too, although the rear triggers appear much shorter.

According to Tecnoblog, inside is Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 6 , powered by Realtek’s RTL8730E and two 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex-A7 cores.

For a better look, visit Tecnoblog and view their images of the black and white controllers. The image below is an AI render based on the leaked controllers, so that you can get some reference for how it looks.

So, how would this work? The most likely idea is that the controller will be able to connect directly to Xbox Cloud Gaming  servers to reduce latency, much like the Google Stadia controllers did. Basically, it lets the controller skip a step, so instead of sending the inputs to the console/phone/tablet and then bouncing them over to the Xbox Cloud Gaming servers, it just sends the inputs straight over via the Wi-Fi to the server.

This wouldn’t solve the problems of cloud-based gaming, but it certainly helps.

The new controller could be intended to paired with the long-rumoured cloud gaming tier of Game Pass.

Have you got any interest in an Xbox controller for cloud gaming?