The physical mechanism that causes stick drift exists in all controllers that use resistance of electrical signals instead of something like hall effect sensors. If you have metal sliding over metal, it’s going to degrade over time. It’s very possible the early controllers had stick drift, it just wasn’t noticeable because it was so bad that every early console just had horribly large dead zones. Only the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast used hall effect joysticks back then and that never caught on. So I guarantee that with enough time, a Dual Shock controller would also develop stick drift.
And sometimes things like this are just a thing that happen when you miniaturize electronics. An xbox controller does a LOT more than an atari 2600 controller did, in less space. Cramming more stuff into less space means everything has to be tinier. and when you have abrasive metals rubbing against each other, and the metal is thinner, it’s going to wear out faster. They’ve flown too close to the sun in some cases and they wear out WAY too fast. Which is a widespread problem but not so widespread that there are no working controller. Clearly what they are doing still works.
This isn’t nearly as much of planned obsolescence as you would think. They just release a new generation of console and make it not backwards compatible with older controllers for that. This is just that as things get more complex, they become more fragile. I would much rather play Elden Ring on an xbox controller that might get stick drift than an atari 2600 joystick.
Stick drift isn’t when the sticks fail to recenter (which is what this would help with).
Stick drift is when the electrical contacts inside the stick change over time and as a result the electrical signal changes over time. A perfectly centered stick might have the same signal as slightly off to the side. (Which this wouldn’t help with)
I disagree with your definition of “killed Linux gaming.” It killed native Linux development perhaps. But using Linux for gaming is more viable than ever thanks to Valve. They single handedly boosted Linux gaming, if anything.
And they also offer more than the competition. For a while there games on EGS were just telling people to get support on steam forums because epic had nothing for supporting games they sold. Steam has forums, screenshot storage, achievements, remote play, friends lists, a shopping cart (🙄) and is adding new features like clips. I’m not using steam because it’s a monopoly, I’m using it because it’s a better platform.
What exactly? That they’re moving to zero hour contracts
This isnt what the headline says though. “Discovered zero hour contracts” isnt how normal people speak. I have no clue if a mass teams call means they discovered some people were already on contracts, or that they were moving everyone to them, or some people, or (not knowing what a zero hour contract is) that the company has new contracts with game publishers.
You took your own understanding of the headline and even in your “its simple” added details that weren’t there originally.
The cross platform friend requests bugs mean I still havent been able to play with the friends who convinced me to buy the game in the first place. But yeah, otherwise quite fun.
Its 100x better of a starship troopers game than the actual starship troopers game that came out last year
These sorts of decisions can impact future decisions. It is to early to say that this is a trend, so people shouldn’t get all up in arms over things. But still, using other company histories as a basis, it is concerning about where this could end up.