At the moment I use my 8bitdo pro2. It was kinda expensive but its a huge upgrade from my no name switch controllers and awful gamesube one from powera.
Also, the 3ds had really good controls (we don’t talk about the c stick)
My favourite controllers are still the official Xbox controllers because of Xbox Design Labs. I like to have my controller look the way I want. And also they seem to be the only controllers that can still be powered by 2 plain rechargable AA batteries.
Edit: Here is my design for anyone curious:
My design was on the front page a few years ago…
I don’t care about colours or AA batteries, I’d rather have a cable personally, I do agree on the choice though.
Anything from the 360 onwards are my preferred controllers. A permanently wired 360 controller that does away with the massive battery compartment it my favourite but these days I use an “Xbox one” version with the USB C cable.
You can use a typc-c to usb cable with the controller if using the controller with windows not sure about other platforms
Yeah, as I said, I use an Xbox one controller with a USB C cable. My PC has a USB C port so I just use C to C. I just wish there was a permanently wired official version of the controller that did away with the huge battery compartment on the back :)
Can’t believe I had to scroll this far for this. To my mind, the modern Xbox controller is the perfect controller for PC. Like you said, this the AA batteries and colorways are great, unique features. On top of this, it’s well-laid out, feels good in the hand, and every button, stick, and trigger feels great to use. And most importantly, it has the broadest compatibility. Every game recognizes the Xbox controller, and almost every game has Xbox button prompts built in.
The only thing missing is hall-effect sticks, but I’ve never experienced stick drift on an Xbox controller so it’s not like I would notice a difference.
The Xbox controllers are too big for my small hands. For people like me the dualshock 4 is more adapted + it has better build quality and feels sturdier all around
DS4? As in the one for the PS4? It’s a bit of an unfair comparison bc they are different gens, but i would definitely argue that the current Xbox Series controllers are higher build-quality than the DS4. My Xbox One controller had creaky, rattly shoulders and an okay but not great d-pad. The newer ones fix that, fortunately.
All that said, I will not dispute that it’s probably less ideal for smaller hands. Sony has always gotten that part right.
Nice
Xbox ones are cool but I can’t wrap my head around the buttons being inverted compared to Nintendo. Also how’s the dpad?
For me it’s the other way around 😅
The D-pad is really nice. It’s very clicky.
Nice, clicky dpad good
Is there no option to design a wired one? =/
Steam controller obviously (for everything other than retro gaming which often requires a dpad).
Not familiar with that, is it the trackpad one?
That thing confuses me
Why are the buttons below, why is there a stick if there are pads
The stick is better for movement, while the pads are better for aiming. And the buttons work fine where they are.
Arguably the left side pad is a bit useless for gaming itself, but its nice to have two pads for desktop navigation and using the on screen keyboard that is build into steam.
Careful now, the swarm of all 11 people who use the left touchpad for movement might hear you and eat you alive while they chant, “just try setting movement to the left touchpad. You’ll never go back… You’ll never go back …”
It’s true, I’ve never gone back, also the joystick is a bit naff anyway
I’ve tried it a number of times and just can’t get it to work for me. Far too much travel distance for me, and the lack of tactile feedback makes it difficult. In some ways, I like the floatiness feeling that that the travel distance creates, but ultimately it wasn’t worth the precision adjustments.
I tried it for some 2D side scrollers, FPS, and 3rd person games. I liked it most for 3rd person but couldn’t get a hang of the other two.
Plus, I really like using the left touch pad as a floating menu, which the joystick can’t do haha.
Oh, I forgot to say – the Steam Decks smaller track pad is actually nice for this reason because the shorter travel distance solves the floatiness issue for me in a lot of cases. I actually play Revita 50/50 between touchpad and joystick, just based on how I’m feeling.
Oh ok
I always thought the GameCube controller was ridiculously comfortable and ergonomic, so that’s my choice. The C stick might not be for everyone though.
Any Dreamcast fans here? Those controllers had similar ergonomics in the hand, although the lack of a second analog stick was a pretty big drawback in hindsight.
Honestly the 2nd analog stick I didn’t mind too much because the face-buttons made a decent D-pad for the tiny handful of shooters on the DC. The bigger flaw was the lack of 2nd shoulder-buttons.
Also that putting a screen into a controller has always been a solution looking for a problem. It was on the DC, it was on the Wii-U, and there’s a good reason they abandoned the idea to put a screen on the PS4 touchpad controller.
DualSense is the best right now IMO due to the features. If you don’t believe me, actually play Astro’s Playroom.
But I love the Steam Deck’s layout (so I guess I’d probably like the Steam Controller as well). A lot of that has to do with Steam Input being fucking awesome, but it’s also possible to get relatively good at using the touchpads as mouse, and the “touch right stick to enable gyro” is an awesome feature that has made FPS games playable on console for me.
I had a dualsense before, bought it thinking of those features. Turns out that a few games had support for it on PC, and most were shooters so I wouldn’t play using a controller.
The battery was abysmal too, it would barely last 4 hours. I’ve heard on some places that it was due to the touchpad being polled for input all the time, draining the battery.
Moved over to a 8bitdo ultimate Bluetooth with Hall sticks and couldn’t be happier
I have read that early DualSense units had a bug that affected battery life. If you still have yours, it might be worth updating the firmware.
I haven’t used mine with PC (I usually just use an X-Box One controller, which was my fav prior to DualSense probably), but it’s a shame that more games don’t use the adaptive triggers and haptic feedback. It’s used relatively often and pretty well on PS5, and for me it’s a borderline killer feature. If more games utilized it in the way Astro’s Playroom did (yes I know it’s a tech demo but that’s kind of the point), it would be far and away my favorite for any system.
Haven’t had issues with battery life, but taht could be because I’ve updated firmware, or maybe the PS5 is just better at managing the DSs’ battery since they’re made for eachother. I also got the official brand charging dock, so perhaps that has something to do with prolonging battery life? Couldn’t tell you.
Steam Controller.
It’s big enough for my long hands. And it has a ton of features and customizability.
What I don’t like is the right track pad when games expect a joystick. Depending on the game controls, it can be suboptimal. (configurable to a degree with center deadzone)
The 8Bitdo Pro+ has been great - works really well with my Steam Deck and Switch. Sounds like the Pro 2 is the superior version with hall effect sticks.
The Switch Pro controller has always been good too. And the DualSense is really neat with the haptics and adaptive triggers - expensive, but not that much more than a Pro controller surprisingly.
Yea, the Nintendo pro controller is way overpriced, before u got my 8bitdo I used these cheapo switch ones that were 7 euro a pop and they were good
To be fair I’ve had the pro controller for several years and it has held up really well. Really ergonomic and the vibration’s good, plus it has gyro. Perfect for my needs on Switch. I think it was worth what I paid.
Oki :3
Which question but does it have hall sticks?
No the pro controller doesn’t have hall effect sticks, but I’ve not experienced any drift. I did take it apart once to clean the insides however.
I had no end of problems with the joy cons, and have replaced those sticks with hall effect ones. Since doing that I’ve not had any problems, touch wood!
Oh ok
The D-pad on the Switch Pro Controller is hot garbage. Unless they changed it.
Admittedly I don’t use the D-pad all that much - does it not register inputs well? I guess it’s pretty important if you’re playing a fighting or retro game that require precise inputs. For the games I’ve played, it hasn’t been an issue.
The contacts inside are too big and sensitive and it results in phantom inputs. The DIY fix is to open up the controller and literally cover parts of the input contacts with tape.
Given that the only console games I play are old Nintendo platformers, I’m gonna have to go with the NES Controller.
Trying to play Megaman 2 with analog sticks is an exercise in anger management. XD
Also, I think you might like the 8bitdo sn30
Its a SNES shaped one with small analogs.
Dpads are cool
Retro games with analogs are pain, I love dpads
Steam Controller is of course an unbeatable classic, almost it’s own category with the weird but charming touchpads.
Of the more conventional controllers I’m a big fan of my current Gulikit KK3 Max. I was looking for a controller with Hall-effect joysticks, and this one looked like one of quality, so I decided why not eh. Feels like a good controller when I use it, so I’m content with it.
I would love to see a Steam deck like version. It really needed a right analog stick and a touchpad.
I’m a big fan of the 8bitdo Ultimate C, but my favourite may well be the GameCube controller
Smash bros player?
GameCube layout is pretty nice
Not really, I just think it’s the best controller. Ergonomic shape, octagonal stick gate (which is a criminally underused feature), good button layout… the only thing wrong with it is that the analogue triggers have a bit too much travel on them.
People like the GameCube buttons? I hate the layout
The sticks are good tho. Would love a hall effect GameCube controller. Mine was good but I accidentally made it drift and its now unusable
PS2
- best d-pad ever made
- comfortable to my big hands without being uncomfortable to friends’ regular-sized hands
- pressure sensitivity all over the place, even if that did get underutilized
- versatile design that’s equally comfortable to use for 2D and 3D games and doesn’t specifically favor a small number of genres
- smooth, strong, and yet quiet rumble
- good heft
- uses a cord so no fucking around with batteries
- sensibly named and located Start and Select buttons (Everyone‘s been dropping the ball on that front, lately. Sony most of all.)
I do not know what the industry wide obsession is with connected D-pads, but my chunky thumbs do not appreciate it.
And with that in mind, the Playstation style of controllers are the closest thing to my ideal controller currently on the market.
Also, I prefer thumbstick under D-pad just in case I need to hit one of those buttons regularly I have a few options.
Yea, the pro2 is PlayStation shaped. I actuslyl prefer it.
What is the pro2 you’re referring to here?
My 8bitdo controller, the pro2 has inline sticks
Yeah, I just wish they’d split the directionals.
What do you mean “split the directionals” you mean staggered sticks?
The directional pad is four separate buttons. Up down left right. I want them to be like the c buttons on the Nintendo 64 controller. Separate.
What ends up happening with me is that I’ll press down but not squarely down. There is a good chance I’ll press partially to the left or right while using smaller d pads. This causes extra inputs I didn’t intend to do happen. The ds made playing tetris much harder on me than it should have for me.
Why?
The point of a dpad is that you can roll it
Edited to clarify. And you can roll separated buttons just as easily… I know because I’d do it a lot on the psp with dj max.
Oh, yes, Sony have a good split pad, joycons have it but bad
Keyboard and mouse… but the Steam Controller is cool too.
Other than that, any PS clone. The long thin horns fit my hands better than others.
8bitdo ultimate. Already lasted more than a couple of months, as opposed to the last two Xbox controllers I had. I just wanted hall effect joysticks and Xbox layout.
Nice
Yea, 8 bitdo have good controllers.
How much was the ultimate? My pro2 was about 50 euro
- 8bitdo SN30 Pro
- GameCube controller
- Nintendo Switch Pro Controller
- Super Famicom controller (mainly the face button colors and layout)
What’s so good about the switch pro?
I agree with the rest :3
Ergonomics, NFC support and gyro. Of course the rumble could be stronger but I have gotten used to it.
My aliexoress ones have super strong rumble. NFC is cool. But don’t most switch stuff have gyro?
I think most PowerA controllers don’t have gyro or NFC. PowerA is what you’re most likely to find as a 3rd party controller.
Most Switch games support gyro functionality, and of course the Joy-Cons also have gyro.
Everything has gryo unless its really cheap
I really liked the wavebird for the gamecube, unfortunately mine went into the aether on my last move, got bluetooth adapters to pair modern controllers with it but the wavebird was really cool at the time, was really amazing to not have to be tethered to the console and it being first party, though at the time the madcatz stuff was decent.
For recent controllers, I’ve been using a knockoff 360 controller for moonlight recently and after a lot of back and forth I really think MS nailed the controller setup back then (OG Xbox being decent but not a preference, I hated the duke, s controller was solid though), I like the xbone controllers as well, but IMO they’re just iterations on the 360 controller, easily my preference as an all rounder controller layout.
I have a steam controller, used it for a while but it’s been some time now, had some really great ideas, I’d totally go for an updated steamdeck style layout on that, probably a second for me.
I’ve had so much drift issues with ds4s that I personally don’t reach for a ds4 or dualsense for non playstation games, I like being able to swap batteries and the Xbox/Steam controllers all seem to have way better battery life in general, I keep a stock of rechargeables around so not generating piles of waste.
Wacebird seems cool
Totally was, it didn’t have rumble for battery life reasons, but didn’t miss it much at the time, barely used the rumble pack on the n64, think I got mine at EB games to try out the OOT secret hint feature (it’d buzz the pack if you were near a hidden secret), feedback has come a LONG way since then in terms of immersion.
