The RiotPWR Cloud Gaming Controller is a perfect complement to the world of cloud gaming, especially with the Xbox side of the tracks. It works, it feels good in your hands, and it is the upgraded mobile controller that most gamers would trust. It does have some cleaning up to do on the app side, but when you get a game going, like Sea of Thieves, then you’re in for a good time. I highly recommend this hardware.
Thank you, good folks, at RiotPWR. Thank you. You have listened to my gripes and have come through with one of the more perfectly crafted mobile cloud gaming controllers. The RiotPWR Cloud Gaming Controller is not so much a technological marvel because of its software, rather it is a technical marvel because of its hardware. From the moment you pull it from its packaging, you will notice that this mobile controller feels like a normal Xbox gaming controller. That’s only the beginning. Let’s get this done.
Everything you know and love about the ESL
When we reviewed the RiotPWR ESL controller way back when in March, we found the functionality of the controller was solid, meaning it did what it advertised it was going to do, but the external body of the controller felt cheap. That doesn’t mean that it was a bad product or anything of the sort, but what it did mean at the time is that there was not a lot of weight to it due to the plastic and I felt like one wrong move meant the controller was going to break. Thankfully, that never happened, but there was always a feeling of ‘could have gotten closer to a console controller’ when I played with it. As many gamers know, the weight on a controller is nice and gives you confidence that you can fully concentrate on the gameplay and not if you’re going to break a button.
This time around with the Cloud Gaming Controller, RiotPWR knocked it out of the ballpark with the controller feel. The casing is solid and contains an Xbox Series X controller feel to it. It’s so accurate, that you even get the small little bumps on the outside of the controller mold, which gives the controller some texture and some grip. It feels like an honest-to-God Xbox controller simply because of the casing. So, step one to replace the ESL mold was accomplished.
As for the buttons, they are just as solid and solidified as the mold itself. You get some spring action in the buttons that make it feel, again, like an Xbox controller. You can confidently pound the hell out of the buttons and know that you’re not going to break them. There’s something to be said about that when you’re playing an intense game of Halo Infinite and pressing the hell out of the trigger button, as well as the jump button. It takes some abuse and keeps on functioning. This goes back to eliminating the cheap feeling of the parts and gives confidence that you can normally play the game on this controller at an intense pace.
The thumbsticks meet equal expectations as the buttons. They have a nice grip on the top that makes you feel like KontrolFreak was involved. They also are tight and springy with their movement. They snap back into place quite quickly and nicely. This might seem like what you would expect from a controller, and it should be what you get with every controller, but cheaply made controllers don’t always meet these expectations. Or thumbsticks created for the first Nintendo Switch. Whatever the case might be, the Cloud Gaming controller excels in this area and adds more confidence to the overall structure of the controller. Again, all of this might seem silly and obvious, but having tested controllers for the last *looks at watch* 23 years of reviewing, I can confidently say when someone makes something on the cheap, that means it’s going to easily break somewhere down the line. I could name a few companies that are still in business that have been doing this over the years, but we’ll wait for their products before digging into them. For now, RiotPWR has made a sturdy and Xbox-like controller for this cloud gaming experience.
Speaking of which…
Cloud gaming that works
My go-to system is the PlayStation 5. I like how the hardware functions, how it is quick, and I just think Sony always puts some style into their products (sans the PlayStation 2 – that looked like an 80s cable box). When it comes to streaming games on the PS5, that is still a work in progress. They have massively intense games, and they haven’t quite perfected the process just yet. Believe me, they’re getting there. When PSNow first launched, PSNow was so painful to play on. It lagged, it would buffer quite a bit, and it had some major graphical degradation. Now, it’s more manageable and you can see they’re streamlining the future of cloud gaming, though it is still best played over a hardwired connection.
On the Microsoft Xbox side of the rails, I’m happy to report they have gotten to the point where wireless streaming is nearly perfect. For the past hour, I have been streaming Sea of Thieves on my iPhone 11 through their Xbox Cloud Gaming application. About 95% of the game has maintained a high frame rate while discouraging a minimum amount of degradation and graphics fallout. It does hiccup occasionally but seeing those sweet waves rolling through and onto my boat, as well as lighting that dynamically shifts with my boat direction…well, it’s just a thing of beauty. I had no idea that MS had jumped so far ahead of the game with this tech. The fact that I can play it wirelessly without many hiccups in the giddy-up is just mind-blowing. It’s truly a good experience, but probably not for my eyes (I haven’t tried Airplay with this yet, but I’m sure it’s amazing). I can now see why they are putting a fair number of resources to get this on televisions and as many mobile devices as possible. That mixed with a $14.99 Game Pass means that anyone can play anything anywhere. Just imagine.
As for this controller, it benefits from the Xbox app. It controls it precisely and does not delay one iota. It feels like an actual controller would feel connected to an Xbox console, and it works as it should work with Xbox games. It’s accurate and beautiful, and it will give you some solid faith that the cloud gaming scene is still worth exploring. To be honest, I had almost given up on this pipedream. Thankfully, this experience has revitalized my faith in the idea. Ultimately, it works brilliantly with RiotPWR’s controller, and it certainly compliments the push and usage of the controller.
As for the app that comes with the Cloud Gaming Controller, it could use some touching up. While playing a specific set of games, like PUBG, through the app works fine, as soon as you go to Luna or Xbox Game Cloud it becomes a bit of an HCI concern. When I chose the Xbox Game Cloud route, it took me to the website where it existed. I had to sign into the Xbox site and then I had to pick the game via Safari that I wanted to play. Instead of launching into the game, it made me press the ‘share’ button in Safari, choose ‘Add to Home’, and then it added an Xbox Game Cloud icon to my phone. From that icon, I could launch the game, which worked most of the time. That’s a lot of unnecessary steps to get a game to launch, but once it worked, then it worked. It should just launch a game or at the very least launch the main Xbox Game Cloud app and then go directly to the game to play. It just feels a bit disconnected right now in its path. On the MS side of things, they really need to have an indicator of the game loading and being ready. It just sent me to a white screen where I twiddled my thumbs waiting for the game’s splash screen to come back and hit ‘play’. There are way too many points of failure with this path and it needs to be cleaned up, and that might be more of a Microsoft disconnect than RiotPWR.
On that RiotPWR app side of the tracks, to give the Ludu Mapp app a break, there are more than enough services that it connects to and I’m sure its app isn’t perfectly handshaking every one of them. It would probably be near impossible to get that right and more than likely a helluva lot more hassle than it is worth. Sometimes the best bet is to go directly to the source. Sometimes there are hoops, but ultimately it does work. Again, Sea of Thieves for an hour on a phone. I’m so impressed. The main Ludu Mapp app is good for the most part. If you can manage the hoops for the external services, then you’re going to be happy you tried out this controller. It works very well.
Other odds and ends
I love the structure and thought-through form of the RiotPWR Cloud Gaming Controller. It works well. It looks pretty, it has all the right connections, and it’s just simple to get plugged in and go. I particularly like the charging passthrough the controller takes, where you can plug up your iPhone via the lightning plug and then plug up another plug directly to the controller itself to keep it powered or charged. There is also a 3.5” headphone jack that takes pretty much anything to deliver audio. It’s simple, it works, and I love the technical design of it.
On that note, let’s wrap this sucker up.
Conclusion
The RiotPWR Cloud Gaming Controller is a perfect complement to the world of cloud gaming, especially with the Xbox side of the tracks. It works, it feels good in your hands, and it is the upgraded mobile controller that most gamers would trust. It does have some cleaning up to do on the app side, but when you get a game going, like Sea of Thieves, then you’re in for a good time. I highly recommend this hardware.
