I grew up with a Wii, and never held an n64 controller, so I always will wonder: How do you hold those? Do you hold it like a regular controller and then reach your thumb out to the joystick in the middle, or do you hold the middle grip and then one of the other outer ones, and have to reach as well? Is it subjective?
So, there’s more than one answer. When it came out the idea was, and it’s debatable how much Nintendo used this concept as a marketing tool or with a design in their head, tha the controller allowed flexibility. For different games, different sections or different preferences, you could hold the two outer handles, and get a basic SNES type thing, or you could hold the mid and either one of the sides.
I feel part of it was a bit of mistrust, maybe from some early testing or internal, about the accuracy or the familiarity of users with the joystick, the design allows people to opt into it or go for the tradizional buttons.
I recall some weird stuff was supposed to be meant for the full left side combo, so directional buttons + analog stick. That was a bit of a far reach…
So beside all the intentions, 99% of the games were played with your left hand on the middle handle and the right hand on the righ handle. Consider there’s a very comfy trigger button below the middle handle that is mirrored or mirrors the left shoulder button.
The chameleon wireless PS2 pelican controller. Fits hands perfectly, light weight, just feel perfect, I’d pay so much to be able to use it on modern systems.
I can't say I've ever really liked a controller, so I never experimented with fancy ones. The one that was the most fine was the ps controller. the joycon was ok until drift kicked in. The xbox controller made my hands hurt after too long. I think if I'd had more xbox games back then I would have gotten more into controllers to find one for my tiny hands. I mostly prefer a keyboard.
I have this one too and I love it. All it’s really missing is a way to remap the back paddles to non-controller buttons and it’d be an easy 10/10. As it is, though, 8.5 or 9, still very very good.
8bitdo SN30 pro. Small, lightweight, perfect button placement. SNES controller designers knew their shit, just add two sticks and a pair of triggers and you can play almost anything with it.
I love this little buddy too. So much so I replaced the ABXY silicon contact pad with replacements from their official website. I love that they sell spare parts, I hate that they gouge me on shipping. So I bought 6 ABXY and 6 crosspad and still have 5 each remaining.
I have been playing videogames since 1992. Went through almost every controller design possible. From the modern ones, I never liked the layout from the playstation so sticked to Xbox. At the moment I’m using a GameSir T4 Kaleid and absolutely loving it. Mechanical buttons and hall effect joystick are very nice. Since I’ve had it only for a year I can’t say anything about reliability. Most reliable Xbox controllers in order are Xbox classic controller S, 360, One. After that every single one is bad IMO. Series controller start to drift pretty fast, same as both elites. So at the moment my most favourite is the Xbox One controller 2nd revision (1708) also known as Xbox one S controller but if the GameSir won’t break for the next couple of years it will be the top one for me.
I hope more first party controllers will get a proper higher tier version with real reliable parts like everything hall effect and mechanical buttons…
Switch pro controller previously and Xbox controller lately. I especially like the detachable AA batteries of the Xbox controller as I can charge extra batteries separately.
Viable? No. It's pretty much impossible for any new service to compete with the big juggernauts. Video streaming takes a ton of bandwidth so it's one of the most expensive kinds of services to run, and it's pretty much impossible to convince anyone to switch over from the established platforms. Streamers won't move because viewers aren't there, and viewers won't move because streamers aren't there.
Every now and then a new competitor pops up because some venture capitalist thought they'd be special enough to succeed where everyone else failed, and promptly dies. No one stands a chance of taking on Google or Amazon.
People will point out that PeerTube exists on the Fediverse, but all that can really be said about PeerTube is that it is a thing that exists. If it's viability you want, PeerTube isn't there and I don't think it ever will be.
Since you‘re on the fediverse already, consider peertube. It still needs work in discoverability but from a data ownership perspective its pretty top notch.
Yeah, thats what we call a trade off. The large userbases are on the bad platforms and the good platforms have small userbases.
Until people start at least mirror their stuff on (eg) peertube, we wont see increase in userbase.
For that reason, if I planned to interact with a large audience, I would go to twitch, no two ways about it, but mirror on peertube so it gets a chance to grow.
There is no free lunch. We have to put in work if we want to see positive change.
Interesting thing to try to make something else more popular is to start on twitch, mirror somewhere else, than declare you move there and mirror TO twitch from there. So that you don’t lose twitch audience but also make some of them want to visit the other site because the main stream is there.
An Xbox one controller. I bought a newer seriesX controller but it developed stick drift almost immediately. My Xbox one controller is going on 6 or 7 years now and is still rock solid. And I play rocket league so you know I am hard on them.
Switch Pro controller for its asymmetrical layout + gyroscope (it’s so much better for aiming). I’d love to test a PS5 controller but symmetrical layout tend to hurt my hands (it was already the case for the PS3/PS4 controllers, so I have little hope for the PS5 controller).
I think the gyro and layout of the switch pro controller are good, but it just feels so cheap, and the buttons are way too mushy. Also doesn’t have analogue triggers. The d-pad is pretty terrible as well.
Right now I’m mostly using the Xbox One controller (on PC). It’s a controller that feels really good to hold. No weird gimmicks like motion control either. I think it’s one of the all time greats.
First of all, favorite for what? For accesibility reasons if it's not a dual stick game I am defaulting to a fightbox-type device these days. I favor a WASD configuration, rather than a thumb-for-up configuration and I currently favor a tiny, minimalist haute board box with cherry switches (blue for buttons, greys for WASD). It's great, it lies on my desktop and it causes minimal strain even in high APM games.
For dual stick stuff, it again depends. Is this a shooter where aiming is a factor? Because then I'm gonna want some gyro. The DualSense is amazing to hold, just bonkers build quality. It is heavy and ugly as sin, though. It also doesn't work perfectly with every PC game, so it feels like a hassle to use it as my default. There's the KK3, which has gyro in Switch mode and seems to be less fussy than the DualSense. Plus they are trying to sell their hall effect sticks to third parties, so those are very smooth. It is a jack of all trades, though, and I actively hate KK's dumb extra button configuration, with start and select all the way at the top, I keep pressing the screenshot buttons by accident.
If there's no twitch aiming, and thus no major need for gyro, Victrix's Pro BFG is fun. It has modular design where you can put the dpad on either location. The dpad isn't great, but hey, the fightbox's there for that. It does have a six button configuration, too, if you're a controller fighting game guy. The best feature, though? Replaceable eight-way gates for the sticks, Gamecube-style. If you're a Smash guy or emulating Gamecube it's such a no-brainer high end replacement.
But honestly? Honestly?
The JoyCon.
I know people hate the JoyCon, but the idea of a split controller is amazing to me, and everybody else who has tried to do it, Lenovo Legion Go included, gets it wrong. The big handles aren't the answer without a middle segment to hold the controllers. The two little boards are fantastic for 3D action games, the amount of tech in such a small frame is astounding and the button-based dpad is so good I'm using fightboxes on the regular now. It's a shame there are some reliability issues, but I would buy a device just like it for PC tomorrow if they could sort out connectivity reliably.
I don't know that I have used the SL/SR buttons on my Joycons once in years, so I don't know that is a priority for me.
Drift is a problem, but I've had it more on PS5 controllers, frankly. I do think that at least some portion of drift issues are actually connectivity. The Switch fills in connectivity gaps with the last remembered input and if you have a weak signal that sometimes manifests as the stick being "stuck" off center.
I do think Nintendo should have gone for a slightly bigger battery and a more powerful antenna, although I see why they didn't want to. Still, as far as form factor and usability goes, those things are the best controller this generation, if not ever.
bin.pol.social
Gorące