After a long wait, Microsoft has announced their custom Xbox controller service, Xbox Design Lab, is now available in Australia.

Offering more than 8 million different colour combinations, Xbox Design Lab lets you customise almost every aspect of your custom controller. You can customise the controller body, back case, D-pad, bumpers, triggers, thumb sticks, ABXY, View, and Menu buttons with various colours. You can also personalise the controller by engraving your name, Gamertag, or custom 16-character message.

The Design Lab experience is very easy to use and quite fun to try out the various colour and style options. The price is right, matching up with the RRP of a standard controller and just adding on when you change a component.

The base model controller starts at $99.95 with the ability to customise the base colour with up to 23 different colours, or add on a pattern ($12.95), rubberised back or side grips ($7.95ea), metallic coloured triggers or D-Pad ($5.95ea) and of course the engraving ($12.95). Shipping was listed as free when I added my customised option to the cart which was nice.

You can have a play around with the various combinations on the XBox Design Lab site now, with shipping taking around 3-4 weeks – but take note, once placed orders cannot be cancelled which makes sense for a custom item. It’s pretty neat, so have a play and see what you can come up with.