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XCM Cross Fire Converter


Labeled With  xcm crossfire
Written by DM on Saturday, May 09 2009

XCM was kind enough to send us their new Crossfire Converter. This unit allows gamers to use their Playstation 3, Xbox1, or Xbox360 wired pad on the Xbox360. It also comes complete with turbo fire functions for all buttons. How does it perform? Let’s find out.

XCM has a long history of making converters and adapters for home consoles. The XFPS, which allowed gamers to use a mouse and keyboard or a Playstation 2 pad on the Xbox360, is still sought after today. There are now three versions of the XFPS, and the original one sells for much money on the net, as it still is the best and only PS2 adapter for Xbox360. Continuing the tradition, XCM has now produced the Crossfire Converter, which allows use of PS3 or original Xbox pads on the Xbox360. It even allows gamers to turn a regular wired Xbox360 pad into a rapid fire Xbox360 pad.

The unit itself is about the size of a deck of cards, may be a bit taller. It is housed in that silver ABS plastic that XCM loves to use, which makes it very solid. It has a USB slot in the front for the pad input, and a USB cable at the back for plugging in to the Xbox360. For those who are using an original Xbox pad, the Crossfire comes with a short wire that fits on the end of the Xbox pad cable to turn it into a USB input, instead of the big Xbox 1 style input. The front of the unit has XCM on it, and it changes color. Each color represents a different device state. There is also a row of switches which correspond to the buttons, each with three settings – H (high turbo), M (medium turbo), and N (normal operation). Finally, there is a switch to deal with the PS3 SixAxis tilt functionality – yes, the Crossfire works with tilt.




Before we go any further, though, there is one thing that I need to make clear. This adapter WILL NOT WORK without a wired Xbox360 pad. This is stated on the back of the box in small writing, unfortunately. Even if you look on the net, many sites do not mention this. It is one of the only drawbacks that I can say this unit has. You see, Microsoft employs a hardware lockout so that only the companies they deem worthy can produce control pads for the Xbox360. In order to circumvent this lockout, you must plug an Xbox360 wired pad into the Crossfire Converter before doing anything in order to unlock the control port. Once you have plugged in an official wired pad, the XCM logo on the front will turn green, then red, then blue, and you are ready to go. Unplug the Xbox360 wired pad and plug in whatever you like (the XCM logo color will change depending on what you plug in – green for Xbox360 pad, red for original Xbox pad, and blue for PS3 pad).

Since most of you will use this for Playstation 3 pad functionality, let’s look at that one first. When you plug in the PS3 pad using a USB cable, the XCM logo turns blue, and you are ready to go. You can use the SixAxis’ tilt functionality if you like, and there is a switch that needs to be set in order to do so. The tilt switch has three settings, L, R, and N. The L setting will substitute tilt for the left analog stick, R for the right analog stick, and N for no tilt functionality. Once I was setup and ready to go, I popped in Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. to test. I am happy to report that the device works flawlessly. The buttons were responsive and there was no noticeable lag. When the rapid fire switch was enabled, the corresponding button reacted as if it were pressed 30 times in a second, or 15, depending on the setting. These days, not many games require a turbo setting, but it is nice to know it is there (mainly for retro gaming). The tilt function was much better implemented that I thought it would be. Is it usable? Yes. Would I recommend it? No, but then again, I would not recommend it on the PS3, either. It works pretty much exactly like it does on the PS3, although only being able to mimic one analog stick at a time does limit its usefulness. The sensitivity is based on the sensitivity setting of the analog stick in the game’s options, and you may want to start out at the lowest to begin. Once you have it set, though, it is certainly fun. It should go without saying in this day and age that the Crossfire supports force feedback rumble.

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