New Delhi, Nov. 17 -- If you like playing games on your phone with a proper controller, Android has probably let you down more times than you can count. You pair a pad, launch a game and hope for the best. One title works perfectly, another forgets your triggers exist, and a third behaves like no controller is connected at all. For a platform that happily sells "gaming phones" and pushes cloud streaming, this has always felt like a blind spot.

Today, Android does work with controllers, but it all happens quietly in the background. You plug in a USB pad or pair something over Bluetooth, Android sees the button presses and sends them on to the game. The system has basic profiles for popular devices, so something like an official Xbox contr...