Summer Game Fest 2021 hosted the Xbox Games Showcase Extended on June 17, an additional presentation to E3 2021's Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase. Content creator Parris Lilly hosted the event, joined by executives from Playground Games, Ninja Theory, Xbox, and more, for interviews around exciting games and projects announced at Xbox's second event. Early in the program, Navin Kumar, Xbox director of product marketing, joined Lilly to introduce the new and improved Xbox Design Lab.
Xbox Design Lab is a website that allows players to create a customized Xbox controller. The site initially launched five years ago, offering hardware for the Xbox 360 and Xbox one, but had to pause its efforts as the Xbox Series S|X rolled out. Now it's back with a wide array of customization possibilities, and three new color options added for the exterior. Most of the colors are made using recycled materials for a more sustainable Xbox controller. The return also coincides with Xbox's commitment to crossing over with PCs.
Xbox Design Lab is officially open and taking orders, shipping to customers in the U.S., Canada and most Western European countries. The website states buyers will get their controllers as soon as July 22, indicating it will take a little over a month for the designs to be made and shipped. Those interested in designing their own custom Xbox controller can visit the Xbox Design Lab website. To better plan designs in advance, check out all the ways to customize controllers below.
All Customizable Options in the Xbox Design Lab
Xbox fans have the ability to select customizable colors in any combination for the front, back, bumpers, triggers, D-pad and Thumbstick portions of the controller. Xbox Design Lab has 18 total colors for those exterior portions of the controller. The standard controller comes in Robot White, but other options include Retro Pink, Lightning Yellow, Glacier Blue, Electric Green, Zest Orange, Regal Purple, Pulse Red, and several other snappy hues across the color spectrum.
The face buttons also have six options: grey on white, black on grey, grey on black, white on black, colors on black, and black on colors. Meanwhile, the View, Menu, Share buttons have five options in a variety of white, black, and grey combinations. Kumar described the latter two as a fun homage to the original Xbox controllers. The Xbox Design Lab also offers customizable engravings on the controllers for an added $9.99. Players can label their controllers with their gamer tag or a short phrase.
During their Xbox Games Showcase Extended interview, Lilly and Kumar presented a series of customized controllers. Some were inspired by video games such as Grounded and Psychonauts 2, while others were inspired by the Lakers or a pair of sneakers. Still more controllers were created purely for aesthetics. Both encouraged fans to check out the Xbox Design Lab and play around to find what they like the best.