The Xbox 360 pad has long since been adopted by the PC. It's there for us whenever we need to pummel our opponents in a two-player fighting game, or when we buy a shoddily ported third-person action game in some Steam sale. Or when we load up Watch Dogs, briefly forget its keyboard-based driving controls are an atrocity, and mistakenly attempt to use them. It's become an essential peripheral.

Can the Xbox One pad be clutched as warmly to our Windows-based bosoms? Microsoft are hoping it can. They've just released the official PC drivers needed to get it running.

"The new PC drivers will enable the Xbox One controller to be used with any game that featured gamepad support for the Xbox 360 controller," writes Microsoft's Major Nelson, whose real name isn't Major Nelson. "Simply download the drivers, connect your Xbox One controller to your computer through a micro USB cable and you'll be gaming in no time."

As we're surrounded on all sides by console publications, we'll attempt to steal one and give it a PC-based review. I've not tried the pad yet, but from what I've heard, the D-pad is slightly less of a load of old knob.