Xbox Controller Question and a small rant.

[Onyx]

Trilby[/url]":8oifnrkn]The sticks are offset so that the most natural hand position gives you one thumb on the left stick and one over the buttons.

But if those are the "sweet" spots for thumbs it would be better to have the right stick high for all those shooters and other camera swinging third-person games. You need to change your quick action button from A to the Y, but otherwise symmetrical would be ideal on those types of games. However Krimhorn mentioned something about having movement and camera on the same plane as more difficult for the brain to process, which is something I hadn't heard of and would have to think more about, but for me they're already separate sides and thumbs which I thought gave me good enough feel for how each is different.

The PS3 placement is a vestige of how the controller was designed.

So why did Nintendo also go with symmetrical thumbsticks for their tablet and Pro controller? They were designed from scratch and still chose not to do the offset method.

I think offset depends on the game and how wide that natural sweet spot is for your thumbs, but for many popular games like shooters/third-person stuff I still think having sticks on just that exact spot at opposite sides makes sense.

 

[Onyx]

ShapeGSX[/url]":2uf1q4xf]

Onyx[/url]":2uf1q4xf]
So why did Nintendo also go with symmetrical thumbsticks for their tablet and Pro controller? They were designed from scratch and still chose not to do the offset method.

Nintendo thought that waggle for button presses was the way to go, and you're using them as an example? :eyebrow:

Yup, but if Nintendo's long history on controller design is lost because of waggle I'm not sure what cred MS has with me shaking my ass to Kinect to activate something.

Shudder[/url]":2uf1q4xf]

Onyx[/url]":2uf1q4xf]
So why did Nintendo also go with symmetrical thumbsticks for their tablet and Pro controller? They were designed from scratch and still chose not to do the offset method.

I guess this goes into a deeper debate question: Would you rather have 2 oddly-placed symmetrical sticks (PS3), offset ones where the movement stick is in the best spot (360), or have symmetrical with the movement in the best spot but buttons become more out of place (Wii U)?

But the Wii U Pro controller is basically swapping the right side, so if those buttons are out of place on the Wii U you're saying the Xbox 360 right stick is out of place.

I don't know if a row of high sticks or low sticks are more comfortable to the natural thumb position, but I only understand you wanting offset sticks if most of your gaming is interacting with face buttons and not the right stick.

 

[Onyx]

Sorry Shudder, I think I repeated your point. You summed things up well.

Until the next debate on controllers that are about to be phased out.