Why did Microsoft stop making their super useful Chatpad for Xbox? (+ alternatives)
The official chatpad for Xbox is now deprecated, but there are alternatives.
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Remember Chatpad for Xbox? That little keyboard addition to your Xbox controller that would let you chat with your Xbox friends more easily?
It seems Xbox users fondly remember the tool, and many of them are asking if it’s ever going to come back. On Reddit, there are dozens of comments on the utility and versatility of the Chatpad, with many noting that it was so useful.
Can anyone tell me why Microsoft stopped making thier OEM chat pad for their controllers?!?! This is very up setting because when I sold my Xbox one many years ago I sold my chat pad with it thinking I wouldn’t buy an xbox again. Now I have a series x and was looking to get a chatpad to go with it and they haven’t made any new ones since the xbox one days causing the old ones to inflate to well over 100$ CAD! A very unreasonable price.
The third party chat pads aren’t good and I don’t want to have to plug a keyboard into my xbox.
Am I missing something here? Why don’t they make these anymore? And am I missing a third party chatpad that is actually good? I doubt it.
Reddit user
Honestly it was a product ahead of its time. Now we are getting games that promote chat functions with mmos and even battle royales having chat windows. Honestly I think they would sell way better if they came out today. I’m also looking for one, but not at $100+
Reddit user
Well, officially, Xbox discontinued it a while ago, but if you have a Chatpad that doesn’t work, you might get help in fixing it by following these solutions here. However, if parts of it are broken, then it’s an end road, as Xbox says there are no replacements available:
Manufacturing of the Xbox One Chatpad has been discontinued. If your chatpad is not working, a replacement option might not be available through Xbox Support.
Xbox
There aren’t any official reasons why Microsoft discontinued this useful piece of gear, but many believe there wasn’t enough demand to justify manufacturing official Chatpads. The question even popped up on official Xbox forums, which is a good sign that these items are very well missed by Xbox users.
Long story short: there is a good chance the Xbox Chatpads were underperforming, from a sales perspective.
While the official Chatpad would not work with the new Xbox Series S and X (you can still use your phone as a keyboard for these consoles, if you want to chat faster with your friends), they work with Xbox One.
There are also several alternatives to the official Xbox Chatpad, including third-party items that you can easily find on Amazon, that work on Xbox Series S, and X consoles, and a simple search on the platform comes with dozens of affordable chatpads.
On GameStop, you can also find even more affordable chatpad plugins that resemble the original ones very much. However, these ones are only supported on Xbox One.
So, there are a lot of options you can choose from, even though the original ones are no longer being manufactured. Either way, you should remember that you can always use another kind of alternative, such as your phone.
