Steam Deck Player Makes Tiny Functioning Xbox Controller

Valve remains tight-lipped on the release date for its upcoming trifecta of hardware, so one fan, to make the wait for a new Steam Controller a little more bearable, spent five months building their own miniscule Xbox controller instead.

A miniature is fun in its own right: you could have a tiny little Xbox setup with a matching console and TV, and maybe some shrunken game boxes on a model shelf (c’mon, a tiny copy of Grounded?), but u/MEAKYI went even further than that. Their tiny Xbox controller actually works.

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“Recently I built a tiny fully functional controller based on an Xbox layout, just for fun,” they posted to the r/SteamDeck subreddit. “It’s small, but it can actually play games.”

u/MEAKYI’s Custom Tiny Xbox Controller Even Has Working Miniature Joysticks

To put into perspective just how small this controller is, u/MEAKYI placed it on top of their keyboard — next to a SanDisk microSD card for good measure — and it’s about the size of four or five keys. I have abnormally big hands, so I can only imagine the torment of trying to press the buttons without hitting all of them at once, but even in regular, normal-sized palms, I’m not sure that it would be very practical.

But that’s not the point; it’s a novel experiment that required making a handcrafted TMR joystick, which is an impressive accomplishment at such a small scale. And while they aren’t planning to sell miniature Xbox controllers — after all, the market would be tiny — I hope they at least whip up one or two for all the Elden Ring challenge streamers out there. Completing the game on a dance pad or with your mind is one thing, but using a controller made for mice? That’s a real test of patience.

Here you can see the tiny joystick (built using nickel) next to a regular sized one.

u/MEAKYI spent half a year of their life building this controller and getting it to work, so maybe commissioning a couple isn’t feasible, even for a challenge run, but they already have plans to do the same for Valve’s new Steam Controller when it hits digital store shelves later this year. “I’m waiting for it to be released,” they capped off the post. “When it finally comes out, I’d love to try recreating it in an even smaller form.”

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