Android Pie Officially Supports Xbox One Controllers

Growing up, we had no grand delusions about cross-platform compatibility. It wasn’t even a topic of conversation why you couldn’t use your Sega Genesis controller on a Super Nintendo. These days, though, there are all sorts of hacks and workarounds to accomplish such goals. And it’s way better when you get official support too, as is now the case with Xbox One controllers on Android devices.

Over on XDA Developers, Doug Lynch points out that that Android 9 Pie has added controller mapping support for the Xbox One S wireless controller.

You might remember a couple of years ago when Microsoft released a Bluetooth-enabled Xbox One controller. This effectively replaced the wireless controller that used some sort of proprietary wireless technology, so it opened up the possibility of connecting your Android smartphone (or tablet) to the Xbox One S controller for a better gaming experience.

That ended up being a little half-baked, unfortunately, because it was far from perfect and didn’t work with everything. And what’s more, you had button mapping issues with certain games too. It “seemed all over the place and just didn’t make sense.”

An unnamed Google engineer has now followed up on the Google Issue Tracker bug report from August 2016, indicating that it “should be fixed in P.” That should improve your mobile Fortnite Battle Royale experience. Now you can have your Pie and play it Xbox One S style too.