LOS ANGELES—Microsoft's press conference included the unveiling of a surprising new piece of hardware: a "pro" Xbox One controller coming to stores in October. The new Xbox Elite Controller earns its classification—though perhaps not its $150 price tag—with a huge number of tweaks and options.

What has changed? A lot, and much more than the updated standard controller. For starters, this controller has four "paddle" buttons on the back, which replicate other normal buttons. They're reachable by middle and ring fingers—meaning Microsoft has finally replicated third-party offerings that let players keep their thumbs on the joysticks at all times.

The paddles are also removable and replaceable, as are the controller's d-pad and twin joysticks—meaning players can switch between concave and convex joystick tops to suit their preferences. The Elite controller will ship with a total of three joystick-head options, along with two lengths of paddle and two types of d-pad—and they'll all come in a handsome carrying case, which will also include a "high-speed" USB cable. Like the updated standard controller, the Elite controller also includes a 3.5 mm headset jack. It will also be compatible with Windows 10.

The heavier controller benefits from a soft-touch plastic paint top-coat—whose "two-shot process" of manufacturing supposedly means that none of its materials will fade in color—along with a new steel construction that, combined with a low-friction resin, guarantees a "zero wear" joystick. Microsoft engineers who spoke to Ars bragged that the "zero wear" claim was actually vetted by the company's legal brass.

The other major hardware difference is a "hair-trigger" dial that lets players adjust how far they must press on the two trigger buttons before the system recognizes the presses as full. But this little tweak is only the beginning of the Elite controller's crazy sensitivity options.

There's an app for that

The Elite controller will launch with an app that players will use to make all kinds of controller adjustments, all of which will be saved to the controller's firmware. The most basic option is the ability to reassign controller buttons wherever a user desires—and because this change exists on the controller itself as opposed to within the console's settings, Microsoft engineers insist that this will reduce any lag issues caused by button reassignments. (If you're concerned about cheating, rest assured that the new controllers will not support any "macro" or button-combo options.)

This feature will probably be most useful with the new paddle buttons, as players may want to have different paddle-control options for various games—and the new Xbox controller app will support up to 255 custom button setups. Players can assign exactly two of those setups to their controller on the fly, which means they can toggle between those two during an active game session.

That quick-swap option will be particularly useful thanks to the ability to edit and fine tune the controller's analog joystick and analog trigger sensitivity. Want to have the joystick's speed change at a slow, granular pace for the first three-fourths of movement to line up a first-person sniping shot and then go way up in speed for the last fourth whenever you need to spin around and take out a nearby melee foe? By all means. Want to have a more ramped-up approach to full speed on triggers for a racing game? Jack it up. The controller's app will let you set all kinds of analog motion curves—and, for funsies, it will also let you dim the "Xbox button" if you think it's too bright.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to test the new controller in any Xbox One games, but I did get to hold it for a while and pantomime gameplay. The added weight was enough to make the controller feel substantial, not uncomfortable, while the no-slip grip fit so nicely in my hands that I kinda wish Microsoft changed the default exterior for all of its controllers. I wasn't all that into the "dial" d-pad option, nor did I really want to switch from the current Xbox One pad's concave joystick tops, but those paddles, man—they sure feel cozy, and we can imagine getting at least the slightest bit better at a console FPS with one of those puppies at our disposal.

The controller's price was not announced at the press conference; we had to wait for its official product page to appear at Xbox.com, which also confirmed the product's October release window.