Use your Xbox 360 joystick on a PC

I remember the days of super big and expensive joysticks that used to work with Wing Commander and other games. I never did own one of these.

I bet it would be neat playing a Wing Commander game with a 360 joystick. So many buttons and 2 sticks, etc...
 
A: Charge and Play Kit (this connects a USB wire to the wireless 360 controller
or
B: A wireless usb device has recently come out for the pc so you can use the 360 controller wirelessly on it.

The Play & Charge Kit cable won't let you do this. You need the wireless receiver to use the wireless 360 controller with your PC. You can use the wired 360 controller to connect directly to your PC's USB port.
 
"The Play & Charge Kit cable won't let you do this."
-- I will have to test this. When I plug the USB wire from the play & charge kit into a pc, I get the plug and play message "a new usb device has been detected".
 
Play and charge kit won't do it, I can confirm that. The manuals even confirm that the controller continues to connect wirelessly whilst the plug and play cable is attatched to the 360.

The wireless receiver is cheap as, (even cheaper from asia, its coming with my bi-monthly box of import goods), and its a fantastic idea. The new wireless headsets are crisper and more reliable that the old style wired ones by a factor of 10.
 
Actually, for a game to get the "Games for Windows" certification, it must work with the Xbox360 controller (and Vista).

Make sure you download the Xbox360 controller driver for the wired controller. It's on the CD if you buy the Windows version, but if you have the one for the Xbox360, you can download it from Microsoft.

The Xbox Live Vision camera is also PC compatible. And a lot of people have found great uses for the HD-DVD drive addon on a PC as well.
 
"The manuals even confirm that the controller continues to connect wirelessly whilst the plug and play cable is attatched to the 360."
-- Maybe that's what the manual says, but "that is incorrect Daniel Jackson". If you have an unsyncronized controller (never presed the 3 arrows)(ie. a new controller or a friends controller)... and you connect up the "plug and play cable", the controller will work. If you then unplug it, the wireless will not function until you syncronize. It has been confirmed that the controller is hackable, but hasn't been hacked.

Anyways, the driver didn't work. You can modify xusb21.inf to get the drivers to install properly, and device manager says they are working properly.... but they don't appear to work. No entry is added to joy.cpl (Registry entry under Joysticks).

edit file:
-= xusb21.inf =-
Find: USB\Vid_045E&Pid_028E
Replace ALL: USB\Vid_045E&Pid_028F

********
I'll buy the adapter today.
 
Actually, the controller is a bit more complex than a regular gamepad. Yes, the P&C kit will show something, but it's equally likely that it's so the 360 can sync with the controller (via the onboard security chip), so instead of pressing sync, it probably can sync through the P&C cable.

*OR*

more likely, it's just a basic USB initialization so that a USB device can get power. Remember, the USB port does NOT provide power unless a USB device initializes. (It can, but doesn't have to). And unless the USB device gets enumerated by the host, the host isn't obliged to give it much power (the spec says the host can supply up to 100mA, but may withdraw the power if it doesn't detect anything there). The P&C kit charges through USB, so the USB ports of whatever it's plugged into (computer, PS3, xbox360, whatever) should at least get something detected to provide power. (And so it can ask the host for 500mA current to charge faster).

The wired controller, or the wireless adapter are required in order for the controller to show up as an HID device.
 
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