Each controller has top cases and button replacement sets in black and white, plus the two inner circuit boards that provide charging, input, vibration, and, of course, sockets with new potentiometers installed to fix stick drift.
The Elite Series 2 requires a plastic pry tool (aka spudger), a T6 and T8 screwdriver, and tweezers.
"Always push away from yourself when using pry tools, so if you slip you won't harm yourself" is advice I have refused to accept a number of times.
Repair store iFixit sells most of the same parts, including some individual components, like joystick modules, for those with a solder iron and the will to use it.
The company's pivot to offer more at-home service options also comes a few years after it closed its retail stores.
Oh really? Every SSD has an end date, you can't overwrite them. Yet Microsoft has a special (encrypted) partition in the internal XBOX that has to match the main board. Because of this, you can't simply open it and swap the drive. In many cases, cloning the partition has failed necessitating sending the entire thing to Microsoft to fix (for a fee).
I see where you are going with this...
But let's be clear this is not an attempt by them to make you fail at fixing it, but an attempt to avoid manipulations for jailbreaking/bypassing it's security and block piracy attempts.
That said yes, that has consequences for the repairability.
And that maybe, I am not expert, there might be better ways to handle this.
Thank you for your response. I get what you're saying but no matter what your stance on piracy is, it's gonna happen. Absolutely inevitable. If (but mostly when) that encrypted partition is broken, they will load up a new 4TB SSD loaded with games they didn't pay for, add the encrypted partition, pop it in their Xbox Series X, and they're off to the races!
But in the meantime, absolutely everyone suffers. Anyone who has an SSD fail (remember: they have limited write cycles!) will pay the price in lost saves and time/money spent sending it to Microsoft. And after the encryption is defeated? Then only legitimate Xbox gamers who pay for their games will be hurt by this. And keep in mind it also adversely affects the less technologically-skilled people more.
So in summary, yes; I absolutely will blame Microsoft for implementing a measure that will only slightly slow down piracy attempts while permanently punishing and inconveniencing everyone else...
I hope to see a bigger push across all tech for this. We can't possibly do better in the fight to improve the climate if we keep using gadgets that have to be replaced every two years.
Xbox controllers go on sale frequently but I doubt these parts will. It makes repair a hard proposition when a new controller is 10-20 dollars more than the replacements. Perhaps this is by design.
Fuck them!
Around two years ago I have tried to contact their support and repair my controller through Microsoft. I had to create an account, use their web chat for hours, PROVE that I own said controller, send the controller serial code, provide my phone number, email, etc. After around an hour of chatting with their support their webpage has crashed for me. After that it has connected me to a new person who was asking the same questions. I have told them to search for my last chat, and after 5-10mins they have told me that my Xbox one controller is too old, and they don't repair them anymore. It was literally the first question they've asked, why couldn't they tell me that they won't repair it straight away? Fuck them