What is your favorite controller?

i have two hands but they don’t work all that well

I’ve always been a PlayStation controller guy. My favorite non-playstation controller was the N64 which wasted a ton of real estate but was a great a controller.

Every time I use a Sony pad, I get the flesh of my left thumb caught under the faceplate around the cut-up D-pad. I also hate how the buttons travel, and the labeling system ensures I never have a clue what button I’m expected to hit.

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One thing I will give the Playstation controller’s button labeling scheme: if you learned it 20 years ago, it’s stayed the same ever since. That’s more than I can say for any of the “letter” derivatives. Where’s the A button? Well, that depends.

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I can never figure out where the X button is supposed to be. Game consoles have had it all four ways over the years.

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This exact thing happened to me! I was surprised.

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my favorite controller is my keyboard

more seriously, best i’ve ever used was probably my old ps1 dual shock controller, and it has a deliciously crunchy dpad and solid, hand-fitting structure that doesn’t hurt my ring fingers like the later dual shocks did. the model number on the back means that hori made it, or so i’m told.

The worst part about Playstation games is that JP and US games switch the meaning of some of the buttons around and I never understood why this became a convention that they stuck with. Some games don’t even have the buttons swapped consistently throughout the whole game.

I have to give the PS1 pre-analog controller props. The balls to just put four fucking triggers on there like it wasn’t no thing. But they enabled interaction with 3D space before the dual-analog regime made us all lollipop twiddlers forever.

aye, fine. I should’ve known better.

Don’t most analog sticks use springs to realign themselves? I am pretty sure most controllers I’ve used recently I’ve been able to ride the X or Y axis.

The best thing about the Playstation controller is the buttons using shapes instead of letters. It fascinated me when I first saw it. Like a controller made so space aliens could understand it. Good iconography.

The worst controller I’ve used was the N64. The analog stick was ridged hard plastic that murdered my thumb. The weird non symetrical way you held the thing didn’t help.

i like the ps4 controller besides the constant low battery notifications
always been into the agetec official dreamcast stick, i have one with full sanwa and that ~2010 era datel 360/ps3 pcb

All this conversation is great and all, but what I really want to know is

  • Standard Saturn Controller (EU/US version 2)
  • Genesis 6-Button

0 voters

This

VS.

This

Ignore the fact that the Saturn pad has the bumper buttons. Just focus on feel/build quality.

I’ve always wondered if the designer was happy and confident with what they came up with or if it was just the result of frustration and design fatigue.

Like, I can totally imagine a scenario in which Miyamoto keeps sending back every design and saying, “No no no NO. We need to have an analog stick and a d-pad, and sort of like…another d-pad. Only it shouldn’t always be a d-pad, because a lot of games won’t use it. So it should be versatile. And it has to work for all games: both 2-D and 3-D games.”

I can totally imagine the designer doing that thing where you just get frustrated and give up and say, “Fine. This is what you described. This is what happens if we just do exactly what you’re asking for.” And they expect Miyamoto to see that his ideas were stupid and start to roll back on features, but instead he’s like, “Hm… It’s unconventional. But it’s…creative. Yes. Yes: this is what we’re trying to do!”

The designer doesn’t know whether they should be happy or chagrined or depressed. They hit the bar after work, just to blow off steam and work out whatever the hell they’re feeling. They console themselves by saying, "Well, he was asking for the impossible, so I compromised with the impossible. It’s not like there was any better way to do it. "

Two years later the Dual Shock 1 is released and they’re like, “God Fucking Dammit.”

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It’s just the VB controller with an analog stick in the middle.

Not really!

megadrive m8, genesis is a band

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You can pry my Amero-centrism from my cold dead fingers.

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Oh–hey: I guess I should probably say that when I decided I was going to buy the ultimate 2-D USB controller a year ago I bought this

and combined it with an e-Tokki PS2->360/PC (virtually lagless) converter.

It’s a Neo Geo pad, made by the manufacturers of the actual Neo Geo pad, with all Neo Geo parts (proper full-size click stick), but with a full 6-button array to match the PS2…but in a more Sega-ish layout.

For platformers, I think I actually prefer a d-pad to a click stick, so it isn’t necessarily the Final Solution for 2-D gaming. But it is very very close to being the optimal 2-D interface, in my book. If I had to choose only one 2-D pad from what’s out there, I’d probably choose this. But the reality is that you might as well have an arcade stick and try to get one of the good Sega 6-Button USB. And then what do you really need the click stick for? Shooters, if you don’t like full sticks for shooters?

Anyway, I like it enough that I’m considering buying another as I write this, because rare game stuff only goes up in value; and the worst thing about my current one is that I’m way too worried about breaking or losing it. But then I am a click stick fan.

Gonna @Rudie , because I know he’s a fellow stick clicker.

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Yeah the PS4 controller’s battery lasts maybe a third of the time the PS3’s lasted. That alone makes it a pretty bad controller and I don’t understand why it gets a pass on that. I’m guessing the center touchpad (that just gets used as a select button, but might still permanently draw more power) and the bright light in the back of it are to blame for the poor battery life.

You can turn off the light (which I don’t do).

I get hours of battery out of mine. Unless you’re playing for marathon 8 hour sessions or whatever (in which case just get a long mini-USB cable) you can go into power suspend mode and plug it up when you’re done playing whenever it gets low. I dunno, I think whining about battery life for a device that you are 100% of the time going to use literally right in front of the thing that charges it is kind of silly.