Support NeoGAF

[Maybe It's Medicine?]

Defending the choice to game on console becomes harder by the day. Sell a lower cost box upfront, drain your customer with shoddy controllers, low value monthly subscriptions that are required to play online, overpriced digital games , full priced "remastered" settings tweaks. Overpriced physical games. Mid gen refreshes. Everything outside of the initial box has become a way to sap money from the wallet. I'm genuinely curious about how much console enthusiasts spend in comparison to a person who upgrades their pc every 2 to 3 years. I would bet the console player pays more while also buying significantly less video games.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Defending the choice to game on console becomes harder by the day. Sell a lower cost box upfront, drain your customer with shoddy controllers, low value monthly subscriptions that are required to play online, overpriced digital games , full priced "remastered" settings tweaks. Overpriced physical games. Mid gen refreshes. Everything outside of the initial box has become a way to sap money from the wallet. I'm genuinely curious about how much console enthusiasts spend in comparison to a person who upgrades their pc every 2 to 3 years. I would bet the console player pays more while also buying significantly less video games.

I think even console makers have noticed this so in recent gens they've focused on this knowing there will be a hardcore group of gamers who will buy in and stick with the ecosystem. Ya they want a big ecosystem, but they all seem happy having a piece of the pie and not trying to dump prices into the toilet:

- selling consoles for breakeven or profit right away
- tons of microtrans
- game prices going up
- controller prices going up. Extra gamepad around the same price as a new game
- profits at record levels

Generations back it was low prices trying to get every gamer they can:

- sell consoles for a loss
- zero microtrans
- $50-60 games
- extra gamepad $30-50. I think PS1 controllers were only $20 or $30
- profits hit and miss. some years they lose money

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Was drift a thing for the dualshock4?

I never encountered it, or it was less noticible than the other issues of that controller (rubber breakdown, trigger breakage)

Drift and/or not being able to run (by pushing down) was a very real issue for the 10 DS4's I had throughout the generation.

 

[jonnyXx]

A bigger deadzone would help in most cases. Controllers are to precise these days

My DualSense has drift on the left stick and using it with Steam I added a very slight deadzone which fixes it.

I'm screwed on the PS5 tho.

 

[CamHostage]

I am sure if someone market a "premium" controller that cost twice as much but last longer, that they would sell.

Unfortunately, all of the console manufacturers have nearly locked out 3rd Party controller manufacturers for three generations now. There were some great third-party solutions in the PS1/PS2 (and TONS of garbage, which was one of the excuses why hardware licenses fell off and only rudimentary controller inputs are allowed,) but that well has all dried up on consoles. Maybe these class-action suits could finally loosen the restrictions? Probably not, until the economics of licensing start to work in their favor...

I am kind of sensing hole in the market here for cheaper HALL effect sensors.

Wonder if there would there be enough room for a HALL Effect controller replacement, if a company sold an alternate part? (It should be able to translate a similar signal to the circuitboard, right? Maybe introducing a magnet would require more shielding than available though?) I get no search results for those type of parts, so I assume that's not an option, even if people were willing to do the soldering.

 

[Putonahappyface]

This would never have happend if we embraced the Power Glove.

 

[M1chl]

Unfortunately, all of the console manufacturers have nearly locked out 3rd Party controller manufacturers for three generations now. There were some great third-party solutions in the PS1/PS2 (and TONS of garbage, which was one of the excuses why hardware licenses fell off and only rudimentary controller inputs are allowed,) but that well has all dried up on consoles. Maybe these class-action suits could finally loosen the restrictions? Probably not, until the economics of licensing start to work in their favor...



Wonder if there would there be enough room for a HALL Effect controller replacement, if a company sold an alternate part? (It should be able to translate a similar signal to the circuitboard, right? Maybe introducing a magnet would require more shielding than available though?) I get no search results for those type of parts, so I assume that's not an option, even if people were willing to do the soldering.

Well i think it could be dole rather easily, shilding could be very small because you are most likely do not have such a high magnetic field nearby. Basically some ferite around it, will do. Or maybe even less. Lets say you take out the potentiometer and on the shaft which moves potentiometer you add the magnet and to the sides you add 2 HALLs (they can be really small) and basically when it's in center you are going to have same readings on both Halls and when on max should be nothing at one and max value on the other one. Sure the circuitry needs something like a DAC, because giving there +5V/-5V volts when dealing with Direct Current could be too complicated, but quad channel 10-bit DACs are pretty cheap (or maybe there is an other way with voltage divider, however I don't have schematic in my head right now.

In professional joystick there is a DAC which is directly connected with serial output, which can be read with may Main controller, because everything is by serial in modern electronics.

Feel like might even take out some old controller and try it myself.

 

[jaysius]

I have an Elite 1 and it's pretty awesome, I also love the new Series X controller.

I hope MS spend some dough making the Elite Series 3, I want a truly premium controller.

 

[PhoenixTank]

If the tech isn't up to snuff... the least that could be done is offering affordable replacement parts for consumers that are relatively easy to swap in.

 

[Exoil]

The only problem I had with any of my controllers is that the rubber on the DS4 sticks peeled off from the first two I ever bought. Also, one of them didn't register 100% movement in R2, something I didn't notice until I started racing online in Project Cars and couldn't understand why my friends went past me on the straights.

Other than that, I can't think of a problem since at least the PS1 era.

 

[Neff]

Good job I bought a spare

 

[sackings]

The 'elite' controllers need to come out much sooner for these consoles. I'm not going to bother if it comes late in the cycle. Early on, it makes more sense as a good investment. That said, I've never really had a problem with drift on DS controllers. That 400hr time to fail is really worrying...Sony better fix that shit asap

 

[Fox Mulder]

The 'elite' controllers need to come out much sooner for these consoles. I'm not going to bother if it comes late in the cycle. Early on, it makes more sense as a good investment. That said, I've never really had a problem with drift on DS controllers. That 400hr time to fail is really worrying...Sony better fix that shit asap

the elite controllers use these cheap parts too.

 

[Macromolecola]

Is it so difficult in 2021 to deliver a well designed analog stick?

 

[Patrick S.]

There's a solution to that.

I got rabies from looking at this, thank you very much.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Cross posting from the Next-Gen thread:

IFixit cite a 400+ hour operating life for the 3D analog stick module.

They need to be much clearer here and specify how that 417 hours operating life was arrived at. It seems shockingly low.

As they state, the ALPs/Alpine datasheet cites 2,000,000 cycles maximum (here).

So based on their 417 hour estimate, they're essentially saying that expect users to manipulate the 3D analog stick with a directional input 1.3323 times per second.

I've gotta say I think this is pretty unrealistic.

They have that explanation here:

One of our teardown engineers measured their own Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) controller interactions for back-of-the-envelope joystick life math. Averaging ten different 30-second intervals, they made roughly 100 full potentiometer rotations per minute. If you play a less stick-intensive game than a first-person shooter, rotating 80 times per minute, you’ll hit 2,000,000 rotations in 25,000 minutes, or 417 hours—that’s just 209 days, playing 2 hours per day. At a more kinetic 120 rotations per minute, that’s 139 days at 2 hours per day.

I think these are completely unreasonable.
120 rotations per minute means 2 rotations per second. And they assume gamers could be able to do that for 2 hours every day.
I'm pretty sure if I tried making 2 rotations per second for longer than a couple of minutes I'd get cramps on my thumb muscles, let alone 2 hours.

These measurements seem completely off. Even the 80 roations per minute seem completely unrealistic to me.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

They have that explanation here:



I think these are completely unreasonable.
120 rotations per minute means 2 rotations per second. And they assume gamers could be able to do that for 2 hours every day.
I'm pretty sure if I tried making 2 rotations per second for longer than a couple of minutes I'd get cramps on my thumb muscles, let alone 2 hours.

These measurements seem completely off. Even the 80 roations per minute seem completely unrealistic to me.

Agreed.

Thanks for the update. It only goes to further prove the issues with their methodology.

How can you get a reasonable measure of average stick rotations from only measuring 10x 30sec intervals?

Common sense tells you need need to measure for lots of different types of games over a much longer interval period, like say an hour for each, but given the pacing variation of different games, you could easily argue this isn't sufficient for an accurate average.

 

[Agent_Nobody]

I still have a launch day 360 controller with literal years of use on it and it still works near flawlessly despite plastic showing through the rubber on the sticks from being worn down (it’s a smooth transition), and otherwise treating it like crap through the years. Tried to use the wired Xbox controllers but the stick push down seemed to break and I’d just go right back to the original.

This last gen: I got disconnects with XBone, shit triggers that broke and stick drift on DS4, and apparently drift on PS5.

It’s hard to imagine those are all the same damn sticks.

...Guess what I’m going to do.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

 

[Rest]

400 hours? That's nothing. Jesus, why aren't they spending more on these parts?

 

[bender]

I still have a launch day 360 controller with literal years of use on it and it still works near flawlessly despite plastic showing through the rubber on the sticks from being worn down (it’s a smooth transition), and otherwise treating it like crap through the years. Tried to use the wired Xbox controllers but the stick push down seemed to break and I’d just go right back to the original.

This last gen: I got disconnects with XBone, shit triggers that broke and stick drift on DS4, and apparently drift on PS5.

It’s hard to imagine those are all the same damn sticks.

...Guess what I’m going to do.

Just about every 360 controller I owned had left stick drift within days or a few months of owning. I've had much better luck with the One/Elite/Series X controllers.