Having first caught wind of this last fall, I've been eagerly anticipating its arrival since then. A series of unofficial delays by Microsoft failed to dampen my enthusiasm; in fact, they only heightened my desire to own it as soon as possible. I'm happy to report that so far it's everything I had hoped it would be.
The device itself is no bigger than a well-used bar of soap (it looks like one, too), so it won't take up that much space in your already crowded PC desk. However, you can hide it behind your desk if you so choose due to the ~30 foot range of the receiver. One negative is that it's yet another cable hanging from the back of my already cluttered PC. Still, it's a decent trade-off.
Installation of the receiver and included drivers was a breeze. It took all of one minute and thirty seconds to plug the receiver into a spare USB 2.0 port, install the drivers, synchronize my spare Xbox 360 wireless controller and verify it was working correctly. I took some time to mess around with the calibration settings, but it really wasn't necessary as it's pretty much good to go from the off.
The first game I tried it on was Winning Eleven 7 by Konami and it performed flawlessly. No detectable lag, no dropouts, no anomalies whatsoever. I'd previously played Winning Eleven 7 with a cheapo game pad from Wal-Mart and just didn't enjoy it, but playing it again with my wireless Xbox 360 pad was a significant improvement.
After playing around with it some more, I decided to try it on a few other games including Madden 06, Tiger Woods 06, FIFA 2002 (making sure it worked in older games also), and finally Moto GP 2. All worked perfectly. It's succeeded in breathing new life into some of my older PC games.
All in all then, it's a great solution to an age-old problem and I recommend it highly.
Score:
4.5 out of 5 Evil Eyes
The Good:
+ It works flawlessly
+ Installation and configuration was a breeze
+ It looks great (to me, at least).
+ ~30ft. range
+ Relatively cheap solution for those with wireless Xbox 360 pads
The Bad:
- Yet more cable running from the back of my PC.
- My cats keep stepping on the synchronize button
The Ugly:
- Scarce availability
Last edited by bapenguin; 02-15-2007 at 01:28 PM..
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Gamertag: Zanzibar / My Halo 3 Stats NationalKato: Palin has no foreign policy experience. This is literally one step above giving the slot to the winner of a game show.
While playing on your PC, can you charge with the play 'n charge by either plugging your PnC cable into a PC USB slot or your X360?
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Gamertag: Zanzibar / My Halo 3 Stats NationalKato: Palin has no foreign policy experience. This is literally one step above giving the slot to the winner of a game show.
Man, I really want one of these for my XNA development. Having to transfer my game to my 360 every new build, just to test the input, is getting really old.
While playing on your PC, can you charge with the play 'n charge by either plugging your PnC cable into a PC USB slot or your X360?
Yes. It can use any USB port to charge, but no data is sent over that USB cable. It still transmits wirelessly. Hell, plug it into your Wii if you want.
Speaking of charging through the Wii. I charge my iPod with my Wii. Since I don't have any AC adapter for the USB connection and I don't have my laptop on 24/7 my Wii is great. WiiConnect24 leaves the USB enough power.
