Heads up—the following ‘8BitDo Ultimate Mobile Gaming Controller – Xbox Edition’ was provided by the manufacturer for review purposes.

I’m quite fond of mobile gaming. Been playing phone games for decades, as far back as Java applications on Motorola flip phones and my favourite fashion statement of a phone, the LG Lotus. And comparing those simple days to what we’ve got now, I think it’s almost a bit of madness that you can now hook a regular old Xbox or PlayStation controller to any modern mobile device and play games like you would a regular home or portable console. But yet here we are and it’s because of native controller support on these mobile platforms that I’ve found myself playing my favourite gacha games, a few paid titles, and even some emulation on the side (those ‘Crash Warped’ leaderboards are killing me) more and more often on the go.

Now for all the “pushing” Microsoft seems to be doing into mobile gaming (or at least, breathing hot air in the direction of this part of the market), they don’t actually seem to have many mobile-oriented controllers. Besides the Backbone, anyway. And even though modern controllers will link up over Bluetooth with just about any device just fine, I personally don’t find it appealing to lug around a controller and I’m even less interested if I need another piece of kit to hook up the controller to my phone. Because trying to stand your phone against the oddly shaped napkin holder at La Colombe is about as much fun as watching the phone fall flat on its screen if you so much as reorient your neck after hunching over to see the bloody game you’re playing.

The glyphs on the rubber here are a nice touch! Very on brand for 8BitDo.

On that note, it’s quite nice that 8BitDo put out a surprise of their own a few weeks back: this is the ‘8BitDo Ultimate Mobile Gaming Controller – Xbox Edition’, an Xbox-branded variant of their Ultimate Mobile Controller. This is a controller that extends to roughly 170mm from 100mm and can slot your phone or even a small tablet into its center rest so you can game right from your hands. It’s compatible with iOS and Android devices and even PC via a wired connection. Besides its unique shape, it’s otherwise a fairly simple controller, lacking rumble functionality and only supporting room for one active custom profile that can only be set up via the 8BitDo Ultimate Software mobile app—and that sits at a near bottom rating of 1.6 stars out of 5 on the Google Play Store, but it did work for me (I’ll touch on that in a minute!).

The 8BitDo Ultimate Mobile controller comes tightly packaged and very presentable at that, as I’ve come to expect from all of the maker’s hardware. Most of the material is recyclable sans the bags used to store the USB-C wire that comes with the device which I very much appreciate as well, though I hope to eventually see that done away with entirely so that future hardware packaging is as easily recyclable as tossing the whole box into a blue bin. We need to watch out for our big, blue, beautiful rock after all.

So, in total, we’ve a few items:

  • The controller
  • A manual
  • a USB-C cable with a Type-A end

No Game Pass trial is included in this unit, which I personally don’t mind as I hand those out to friends anyway. What I do like about this unit is just how comfortable it is to hold and play with. It’s got a solid build with responsive button that reset quick and analog sticks that share the Xbox controller’s concave-ish grips which makes it much easier to keep your thumbs centred and ready for action. I found it easy to rest my fingers on the shoulder buttons and the triggers just like I would a regular Xbox controller and the two back buttons are easy to access. All in all, it’s a great controller to hold and even its d-pad holds up very well against tight platforming challenges and tricks that I was able to pull off while playing games like Crash.

Connecting is as simple as holding the pairing button and syncing up the Ultimate Mobile controller with your Bluetooth-enabled device. Note that this unit does require a fairly higher version of Android than other units on the market: Android 13 and above are supported and as all my devices are fairly modern, I had no issue hooking up my phones and tablets to the controller. Over on my PCs, once I plugged in the controller, it was picked up as a generic Xbox pad and worked out of the box. That came in handy as I usually carry around the 8BitDo C pad for use with my laptop and since I was reviewing the Mobile Controller, I could just toss that under the TV table in the meanwhile.

I had no issues with the 8BitDo mobile controller during the week or so I took it around my trips. The nice thing about controllers these days is that they work with just about anything—browsers, operating systems, TVs, etc—it took ‘Zenless Zone Zero’ and ‘Genshin Impact’ like a champ, I scored some Platinums over on Retro Achievements with the DuckStation emulator, a bit over Xbox Cloud Gaming, you name it. Ultimately, on Android and iOS the big factor over how well this controller will work for you is whether or not said software supports controller inputs properly.

A game like ‘Wuthering Waves’, for example, will work great as the software automatically detects controllers like 8BitDo’s and configures support on the fly. But another game I tried, ‘Honkai: Star Rail’, will assign the wrong key configurations to this unit and therefore makes it rather clumsy to play. And in the Ultimate Mobile controller’s defence, Star Rail’s controller support is poorly implemented anyway and you’re better off using the touch interface, but I digress.

In the event you want to change up your controls for any reason or check for firmware updates, you’ll need to go through the 8BitDo Ultimate Software V2 app available only on mobile devices. The Ultimate Software on PCs will not pick up the unit, which is a bit disappointing considering that the controller is compatible with PCs. But moving on, I was a bit skeptical using the application considering its low review score, but I had no issues with setting up a profile or checking for updates. And besides adjusting button inputs and deadzones, there’s not much else you can assign to any other button besides what’s pictured. No macro support, for example. I tested this application on an S25 Ultra, for what it’s worth, so I can’t comment on the experience for other devices besides any modern Samsung unit.

But ultimately, 8BitDo’s Ultimate Mobile controller is quite nice! It feels great to hold and extends long enough for even the biggest of popular devices like the Galaxy Ultra phones. Battery life is solid, lasting at least 3 hours of play during my tests with no issues. It works out of the box with just about every device I own and has shown no issues in games that I actively play besides those whose support for controllers were already a bit messy. No rumble support is a bit disappointing, and the application and profile support are fairly barebones. Put simply, if you’re looking for a controller that just works and don’t need any sort of customisation or rumble, this is a great option for mobile gaming especially at its price point compared to other similarly styled controllers.

The 8BitDo Ultimate Mobile Gaming Controller – Xbox Edition is available for purchase via Amazon US/UK and via 8BitDo’s eShop (Worldwide) for $49.99 USD, available in Black or White. If you do not care for the Xbox branding, the Ultimate Mobile Controller is also available without the big X over on 8BitDo’s eShop as well.