Summary
“Pro” gaming controllers are a whole concept in and of themselves, but they often involve better-quality materials, back programmable macro triggers, and a whole lot of extra features made forrealgamers. If you’ve thought about whether you can buy one for your phone, the Backbone Pro might just be what you want, and it’s looking pretty good.
Backbone has just announced the Backbone Pro, basically a more premium version of itsBackbone One controller. Physically, the controller itself looks pretty similar to the Backbone One. So whatisdifferent here, then? There’s a few things to highlight. We have, for one, full-size joysticks and remappable back buttons, which Backbone says were developed in hand with several testing phases with professional gamers and industry veterans. The design process reportedly included over 9,000 part iterations and analysis based on user research involving 3D hand-movement tracking across thousands of gameplay hours.
Through the Backbone app, you’re able to remap all controller buttons—not only the back triggers, which are made for customizing and mapping, but really all buttons. You can create and save distinct control profiles tailored to specific games or different devices, letting you have varied configurations for playing on a phone versus a laptop or TV, for example. The app itself continues to serve as a central hub for launching games from various sources, including native App Store games (Apple Arcade, Netflix games included), Remote Play services, and cloud gaming platforms. And now it has a built-in emulator as well, so that’s pretty cool.
Getting back to the controller, though, another big addition here is that we finally have a proper Bluetooth wireless mode. You have the same usual wired handheld more where the controller physically connects to devices like smartphones via USB-C. But for the first time, we now have a Wireless Mode that utilizes Bluetooth connectivity like a regular controller, allowing you to play on screens like tablets (including iPads), laptops, VR headsets, and compatible smart TVs from a distance. To allow for easy switching between devices, the Backbone app has also now added a feature called FlowState Technology. This system remembers previously paired devices, allowing you to reconnect via Bluetooth with a single tap within the app interface.
The Backbone Pro controller is available for purchase starting today directly fromthe company’s website. It will set you back a cool $169.99, though. The regular Backbone is $99.99, so you’ll have to gauge whether all those extra features make the controller worth the extra $70. I would say most people would be fine with the Backbone One, though if you have an extra $70 burning a hole in your pocket, you might as well splurge on this.
