Stadia Wireless Controller Finally Works Wirelessly On PCs

What is the point of a wireless controller if you can only use it with a wire? That may be the question that popped into the minds of early Stadia subscribers who found themselves forced to attach a cable to use the Wireless Stadia Controller on anything other than the blessed Chromecast Ultra. That question has now finally become moot as the Wireless Controllers can now ditch the wires if playing on a PC or laptop Chrome browser. Android users, however, are still out of luck.

To be fair, the Stadia Controller does work flawlessly and as intended with Stadia's primary "console", the Chromecast Ultra. They can use it on other Stadia devices but only if they connect via the USB-C cable, which is not exactly the end of the world but it does break the premise of Stadia empowering gaming on any device on equal footing. To its credit, Google promised it was working on it and the first part of it has been delivered now.

Now Stadia players can directly link their controllers to Stadia.com through a common Wi-Fi connection. It's an indirect connection though as the controller actually connects directly to Stadia servers rather than to the device in order to minimize the latency in passing data to and fro. That is also why some users have been baffled why that feature wasn't available on day one in the first place.

Sadly, Android users still have to settle for dangling a cable between their phone and Stadia Controller. Of course, it's not the only controller you can use for gaming but hopefully, it won't be long before Stadia flips the switch for it as well.

Support for the Stadia Wireless Controller on the Web is just one of the latest updates that Google has announced for this week. Of course, it's also an opportunity to announce new games coming to the catalog. Those include Turing Test, Zombie Army 4: Dead War, and SteamWorld Heist, all free for Stadia Pro subscribers.