Lianne Dhalla | 5 Jan 2023 10:17 PM
Asus is back at it, making the lives of gamers a little easier and a lot fancier. The ROG Raikiri Pro does everything your average controller can and more, thanks to its built-in OLED display and host of connectivity options for PC. The controller sports a tiny 1.3in OLED display just above the Xbox button. It will be used to display custom animations as well as battery or microphone status and so on.
This OLED display brings a 128 x 40-pixel resolution and will largely be used for swapping profiles during games, or for checking charging or mic status, Bluetooth pairing, and running text or animated wallpapers. It does offer some practicality and the custom animations are rather reminiscent of the OLED display that once replaced the Xbox “jewel” on the revamped Duke controller and the classic Sega Dreamcast controller.
There are also two buttons at the top of the Raikiri Pro that supports controller profile switching in-game as well as button remapping, joystick sensitivity, trigger modes and dead zones. All these can be customised further with Asus’ Armoury Crate PC app. Lastly, there are four programmable rear buttons, trigger locks, as well as a circular D-pad.
This will be the first Xbox-licensed controller with tri-mode connectivity. The three modes consist of Bluetooth, a low-latency 2.4GHz RF mode, and wired USB-C. Despite the fact that the controller features the ‘designed by Xbox’ branding, Asus stands firm that the Raikiri Pro is a pro PC controller, and it only mentions connectivity to Xbox Series X / S consoles through wired USB-C. This could mean many of the pro features will likely only be fully functional on PC.
The Raikiri Pro also pack on audio features like a built-in ESS DAC, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and a mute button. Asus hasn’t provided the exact release date and pricing yet, all we know is that it will likely be available in the first quarter of the year, so get prepped for it…