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:
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
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.
The steam controller. I love the trackpad!
That trackpad was a game changer for playing KB+M games with a controller, but to be honest sometimes I really miss the right joystick. The trackpad can fake it, but it’s not the same.
If they ever do another standalone controller I’d want it to be like a screen-less Deck. Both joysticks and trackpads and a couple more grips.
Steam controller obviously (for everything other than retro gaming which often requires a dpad).
That thing confuses me
Why are the buttons below, why is there a stick if there are pads
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 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.
