Dell Concept Nyx is a gaming controller from the future

In 2022, Dell unveiled a new kind of gaming controller. Known as Nyx, the controller connected to a gaming server and allowed you to make gaming easy all around the house. You could play games using one controller on all the screens in your home and could even have two games playing at once.

Today, at CES 2023, Dell announced the second version of Concept Nyx. Like the first version, it is just a concept, meaning Dell has no intentions of selling this product. However, it could exist as a proof-of-concept for future gaming controllers.

As with the 2022 version, Nyx is not just a controller. You need a server attached to your home network to facilitate all the cool tricks Nyx can do. In the image above, you can see the server (in its current state, anyway) looks a lot like a minimalist PC tower.

The controller, though, looks a lot different from the original design. It appears much more refined with more than a few design cues taken from the Xbox Series S controller.

Concept Nyx has so many more tricks, though. There’s a fingerprint sensor onboard which would allow you to instantly open up the last game you were playing. This could be helpful if you share that controller with other members of your household. There are also fully customizable buttons and triggers so you can set your preferred haptic feedback level.

You can remap the buttons of the controller and see an intelligent overlay that tells you what button does what in each game. For example, if you remap the jump button in Horizon Zero Dawn to Y instead of A, you won’t need to memorize that because the on-screen controls will adapt.

There are also shift buttons which essentially double the number of front buttons available. In other words, the A button could have two functions: a regular one and a different one when you hold down the shift button. There’s also a scroll wheel function for mimicking a mouse wheel and a touchpad.

Unfortunately, Dell still has no plans to make this a reality, despite Concept Nyx appearing two years in a row. Here’s hoping we’ll actually get to try a commercial version out next year.