Wireless Xbox Controller With Headset

By Ian Bell March 23, 2005

Featuring Bluetooth wireless technology built directly into the controller, the “Wireless LIVE” controller and headset allows players to roam around the room free of wires, playing with the same clear sound and precision of a wired solution. The “Wireless LIVE” offers crystal clear voice communication combined with instant gaming response time up to 30 feet away from the console.

Key features of the “Wireless LIVE” include: auto channel scanning for maximum signal strength, turbo fire, up to 30 hours playing time (with vibration deactivated), fully analog buttons, twin 3D rubberized analog sticks for precise control, expansion port for memory card, rubberized grips for comfortable extended game play, an adjustable headset, and vibration feedback for maximum gaming immersion.

Set to begin shipping in North America on May 1, 2005, the “Wireless LIVE” (G8030) will have an MSRP of $49.99.

Wireless Live Controller

Publisher

I work with the best people in the world and get paid to play with gadgets. What's not to like?

Gaming

Final Xbox Live Gold games include a free hidden gem worth downloading

Blue Fire's main character runs on a wall.

Microsoft revealed the final two games that will be available for free as part of the Games with Gold program for Xbox Live Gold. The service isn't really going out with a bang, but one of the games is a solid Souls-inspired indie platformer that's worth a download as Games with Gold's swan song.

The two games Microsoft will give away are Level 91 Entertainment's Inertial Drift and Robi Studios' Blue Fire. Inertial Drift is a vibrant, neon-infused arcade racer with unique twin-stick controls that players have to master in order to steer and drift properly. Racing game fans should get a kick out of it, but the game to really care about in this final batch is Blue Fire.
Blue Fire is a 3D platformer, but it takes more inspiration from the likes of Dark Souls and Hollow Knight than Super Mario 64. While it's a pretty fast-paced platformer with a satisfying dash move at its core, it makes players platform through pretty dark and moody settings that interconnect like Dark Souls areas do. The game also sometimes places emphasis on combat, which is usually a bad sign in platformers, fights can actually sometimes be pretty tough and satisfying in Blue Fire.

Gaming

Xbox has new Ninja Turtles controllers … and they smell like pizza

Players use Ninja Turtles themed Xbox controllers.

Microsoft and Paramount Pictures are giving away Xbox controllers based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, which they are proudly proclaiming are "the world's first pizza-scented Xbox controllers."
This is not the first time Microsoft and Paramount created weird Xbox controllers to give away in a sweepstakes. Its fuzzy Sonic and Knuckles controllers released around Sonic the Hedgehog 2 also gained a lot of attention in February 2022. Still, there's never been an Xbox controller quite like this. Four controllers exist, which are an oozy green, have art of one of the turtles on it, and have the top of a pizza sticking out of the back. According to Microsoft, that is what is actually pizza-scented.

"Satisfy your hunger for kicking butt with the world’s first ever pizza-scented controller," Microsoft says in an Xbox Wire post about the controller. "Designed to deliver the smell of the Turtles’ beloved meal to your game time, these exclusive Xbox Wireless Controllers come with a built-in scent diffuser shaped like a slice of delicious New York ‘za." That's a pretty fancy way to say you've made a controller that smells weird and will continue to smell even weirder as time goes on. They don't even specify what kind of pizza it smells like!
To have a chance to nab one of these controllers, people need to follow Xbox Game Pass on Twitter (or X, as it's being rebranded to) and retweet (re-X?) a tweet (an X, I hate this) that the account will eventually post before August 13. What you do after you get one of these is on you.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem hits theaters on August 2.

Gaming

Your Xbox Live Gold subscription will turn into Xbox Game Pass Core this September

Microsoft finally made the decision to move on from its monthly online-access subscription service Xbox Live Gold. On September 14, Xbox Live Gold will transform into Xbox Game Pass Core, with current Gold subscribers automatically gaining a Game Pass Core subscription.

An Xbox Live subscription tied to online play has existed in some form since Xbox Live launched in 2002, but Xbox Live Gold as we now know it truly came into form in July 2013 when Microsoft started the Games with Gold program that gave subscribers free games each month in addition to that online access. Although Microsoft rolled back some online restrictions in 2021, Games with Gold continues to this day. That will all end when Game Pass Core launches.