When do user-to-controller associations take place?

When a controller is successfully associated to a user, pushing the nexus button on that controller will show that user’s personalized experience in the Guide and Dashboard. Users need to feel like they understand and control when this happens. Anytime the association between a user and controller changes, there will be a XUserDeviceAssociationChangedCallback. New associations can be formed in the following ways:

Anytime an account picker is shown.
Calling XUserAddAsync.
Calling XUserFindControllerForUserWithUiAsync.
When there is a single user signed into the console, the first controller given input by the user will be associated to them.
When a user chooses to launch (or relaunch) a game using an unassociated controller, that controller will automatically get associated to that user.
Using the XBOX Accessories app, a user can associate a given controller to a user. When that controller is turned on, the specified user will be signed in and that controller than associated to that user.
Plugging a battery back into a controller will automatically reassociated that controller with the previous owner

Associations can be lost when:

The controller is turned off (e.g., battery loss)
The user signs out
The controller is associated to a new user (the original user will get that it is now lost.)

The following example illustrates how controller associations can change on the console, events that get fired, and what actions a game might take.

Step	Description	Game Actions	User A State	User B State
1	User A is signed in and launches the game using controller 1.	Game registers for XUserDeviceAssociationChangedCallback and calls XUserAddAsync.	User A is known to the game. Via the callback the game knows controller 1 is associated to User A	N/A
2	During gameplay, the user goes back to home and the game is still running.		No change	N/A
3	User A signs in User B using controller 1.	XUserDeviceAssociationChangedCallback fires.	User A is still known to the game but no longer has a controller associated to them.	User B is signed into the console but not visible to the game. They are associated to controller 1.
4	User A returns to the game, still using controller 1.	As a best practice, the game should call XUserFindControllerForUserWithUiAsync to ensure that User A is properly associated to a controller.	User A is associated to whatever controller they selected.	If User A re-selected controller 1 instead of a new controller, User B is no longer associated to a controller.

GDK and Game Engines Integration

Steam porting guide

Game Principles

Core Features

Console Features

See Also

​See Also

See Also