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P.S - I hope this isn't asking too much.

Absolutely not!!! This Xbox 360 controller interface is a new interface. Microsoft call this interface as a new standard for gamepads in the hope further gamepads will be built with this standard or they will support this new Xbox 360 controller interface. The advantage is that further gamepads can be used on pc (also gamecube3 controllers, ps3 controllers and so on). I don't wanna loose a lot of comments about this idea, but maybe gamepads will get more place value in further games, specially on pcs. Maybe you will spend more time for reflecting about how you'll design your player stearing by gamepads and controllers in the future. Surely older controller/gamepads/joystick/wheel interfaces on pc will be supported till the last day on earth (some great joysticks are often designed for only one game or one game genre and an Xbox 360 controller can never replace such a device. Players stearing by keyboard and mouse has a lot of advantage over gamepads! The wish to standardisize all on this earth is idiotic and maybe other game platform companies aren't very pleased to see their own controllers on Windows?).

At they moment this controller interface is so new that there's only one controller/gamepad/joystick/wheel that can be called by this standard: 'Microsoft's Xbox 360 Controller'. If you wanna see anything running in my sample you need at least one Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller! (I don't have an Xbox 360 console, so I also had to buy such a device to programm the plugin!).

Note: The Xbox 360 Controller is also supported by older interfaces!! So one problem at the moment is: you don't have the chance to distinguish this controller in wdl (I'll make a dll that can this). But in the future you'll may have to code player stearing like the following bad sample:

if(I_use_Xbox_interface)
{
player.move_x = Xbox_Button_A(1) * factor_x * time;
}
else
{
player.move_x = my joy_1 * factor_x * time;
}

And you can write with big letters onto your published game: "This game supports the new Xbox 360 controller interface!" If you publish your game tomorrow, you'll earn millions by writing onto the game: "NEW! NEW! NEW! GET THIS FIRST PC GAME SUPPORTING XBOX 360 CONTROLLERS BY THE NEW XBOX 360 CONTROLLER INTERFACE - GET THE PLEASURE - GET IT! GET IT! GET IT!!!!!"

Don't take the cake to the party.