Xbox Confirms the $49.99 Xbox Nano Controller Has No Rumble

The Xbox Nano Controller won’t rumble. Xbox DACH is Xbox’s official account for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and it confirmed on October 15 that the new pad has no vibration at all, in a reply to a player who had already pre-ordered one and couldn’t find the answer anywhere.

“Der Nano Controller besitzt keine Vibrationsfunktion,” the account wrote, which translates to “The Nano Controller has no vibration function.” The reply didn’t say why.

Microsoft announced the Nano on October 14 for $49.99, with pre-orders open now and shipping from November. Microsoft’s own announcement on Xbox Wire lists a length of a little over five inches, a weight of 3.5 ounces, all 18 standard gameplay inputs, a rechargeable battery, a programmable Action Button, and Xbox Wireless and Bluetooth support. It never mentions rumble either way, which is why players went looking for an answer.

The Nano is pitched at younger players, smaller hands and play on the go, including cloud play on Samsung TVs. Microsoft has US holiday offers that pair the controller with two months of Game Pass Ultimate for new members when you buy select Samsung TVs or a Meta Quest headset.

Our read: For the Nano’s main jobs (cloud games on a TV, a pad in a bag, a second controller for kids), going without rumble is a fair trade for the size and the price. It’s a bigger loss for racing games and shooters. For example, in a racing game vibration tells you a tire has hit the grass before the screen makes it obvious, and in a shooter it lets you feel a hit land. Microsoft put Forza Horizon 6 in its own pitch for the Nano, so anyone who bought one mainly for driving games should know it’ll play them without the feedback a standard Xbox pad gives. If that matters to you, check before the pre-order ships in November. Xbox hasn’t said whether the shipping model changes anything else.

Edited by Kerwin Stewart, Editor-in-Chief · How we report