XCM Cross Battle Adapter

Yet another cool gadget for the PS3 from XCM!

The XCM Cross battle Adapter allows to plug a wireless Xbox 360 controller into the PS3.

This is especially targeted to FPS/3rdPS fans who prefer the Xbox 360 controller for this genre. I'm part of those so I grabbed it! The Xbox's gamepad suits me better because of the placement of the left thumbstick. When I hold the PS3 gamepad, my left thumb is not in its natural position which is where the D-pad and the Xbox's left thumbstick are actually placed. This can be a serious handicap... Last but not least, with the Xbox 360 you fire with a real trigger and not with a bumper like the PS3's L1/R1!!!

The XCM Cross Battle Adapter also has a rapidfire function which can be enabled for any of the buttons/triggers. COD4 has been recently patched against modded controllers caping the R.O.F. (Rate Of Fire). Rapidfire can still be useful though not only with semi-automatic weapons like all the pistols, the G3, M14, M21 but also with the M16. At Killzone 2 its utility is lesser, it's just useful with the pistols... I don't know what will happen with the Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 though, since Infinity Ward has declared that they will treat modded controllers in a different way.

The "Plus" version also supports Rumble but honnestly it's less good than the Dualshock 3's rumble and the wired Xbox 360 controller's rumble is very weak compared to the wireless...

So far i tested it with COD4:MW and Killzone 2. It works reasonably well with both. I don't know if it my impression but it's possible but there is a latency added, so the response must be a few milliseconds slower than with the PS3, but the I wouldn't swear either.

The biggest issue of the XCM Cross Battle Adapter is that not all games have the option of reconfiguring the controllers, or offer a controller preset swapping L1/R1 with L2/R2 in order to be able to use the Xbox 360's controller triggers for aiming and shooting, and not the LB/RB bumpers. With COD4 you can do it, with Killzone 2 also, but Killzone 2's preset using R2 (or L2) for fire, doesn't have L2 (or R2) for aiming... I've just learned that this gets fixed in freshly released version 2.0, which features a new function for swapping the controller’s triggers and bumpers. This basically means I should have waited a bit longer before I bought the "Plus" version. Oh well...

All in all, the XCM Cross Battle Adapter is a great product for shooter fans. The only thing I don't like is having a lot of wire between me and the PS3 (the adapter's plus the wired gamepad's)...

Panos Agoros 2009