Final Thoughts

If you’ve gotten this far, chances are you’ve had your fair share of experience with more than a few of these duds.  None of the big boys escaped.  Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and Microsoft have all contributed to the pile of questionable controllers, though Sony may be the closest thing to “best controller maker” that we have.  They’ve essentially taken one style that worked well and ran with it for the last 20 years while everyone else was busy trying to make an impression.  I will admit, there’s nothing quite like getting a console for the first time and experiencing an all new controller, but familiarity and consistency is appreciated as well.

All controllers possess their own strengths and weaknesses, and this list reflects those whose shortcomings overcome their merits (in my opinion).  Many aspects are based on my own personal preferences and I’ve yet to pick up a controller so poorly designed or constructed that I absolutely couldn’t tolerate at least a little bit.

It would seem that uniformity is prevailing when it comes to the major console manufacturers and it could just be that the days of dozens of unique and eccentric controllers are over.  Even today it still amazes me how easy it is to quickly shift from playing with one controller to another.  I think it’s still a possibility that a super high tech controller will hit the market and subsequently suffer endless derision at the hands of angry gamers, but for now shapes and functions have stabilized and it’s easy to wonder why they were all so different to begin with.

Written by The Cubist

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