Sheikah

No @DuD these days?

It's perfectly possible, I just find it unlikely. I find it much more likely you're loyally defending Nintendo than speaking from experience. The fact you used news reports of the DS4 rubber coming off rather than commenting on how it felt in your hands to discuss its build quality says something. They sure are. If I throw a Nintendo console off a building, maybe it'll survive. Absolutely no clue what that has to do with the discussion, though. Such a ridiculous statement. As if their length of time in the industry is an assurance of quality and that we must therefore assume they are correct. Tell me, if they're the masters in hardware design, why does the Gamepad have the quality and resolution of something like a Vtech toy? Why have they not provided an evolution of the Gamecube pad when people loved it so? Why are the triggers on the Pro pad crappy? Why are the buttons hard? If the last 4-5 years has told us anything it's that Nintendo aren't doing the right things, so I've no idea why we should assume they're the ones doing it right.

Whaaa, you're just making this up now. Look at that N64 controller image. The control stick is dead center in the controller - on the DS4 the left stick is essentially where the N64 D-pad is (but a little bit lower). The stretching you do with the N64 in that position is nowhere near like with the DS4. If you disagree, then by all means upload an image of you using a DS4, because nobody is buying that. No idea why we're even arguing this as you don't have a PS4 and clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

LOL, what on Earth are you talking about? I literally have no clue. In what way is that like using the Dualshock?

You've more belief in Nintendo regarding making controllers? :p This is the company that made one of the most comfortable controllers but then ditched everything about it and made the Wii U Pro controller. And also the company that made the gamepad as their main controller...which is essentially a slab with buttons that cost them a fortune. Regarding FPS knowledge they have, what, one (relatively unorthodox) FPS series? Maybe one more that I'm forgetting? Metroid Prime...so they're hardly the experts in the shooter field, are they? We know that Nintendo don't ask what third party devs want hence they ended up with the Wii U...if they really had consulted devs about making it FPS friendly it wouldn't have had shitsauce triggers nor would the console be so underpowered that it'll soon miss out on most new FPS titles. I'd also argue that while the Wii Remote was a fun way to control an FPS there's not a chance in hell we can consider it provides the same accuracy as a controller. You'll never find professional FPS players wanting to use that as their primary control (Ok, it's keyboard and mouse for them, but motion controls would no doubt rank lower still). Your ability to point a controller at a place on the screen is several degrees less accurate than your ability to finely tune a control stick.

Nope, it's definitely unnatural. I have a lot to compare it to, and it's certainly not a case of unfamiliarity. For example, the 360 pad switched the left analogue and D-pad but using the stick still feels natural, as either position works (although one renders the D-pad a bit useless). Here, though...the way you must position your hand to reach the lower buttons is like how you might position your hand on the 360 pad to reach the D-pad. It has never and will never feel good.

I'm sorry, but the might and experience of the other console designers prove it's anything but wrong. As Microsoft's console is FPS and shooter dominated don't think for a second that they wouldn't have done this if it was better. It's just a lot worse... like Flink said, it requires you to do a rather unnatural movement with your right hand to access the buttons. Yet accessing the right stick, and making fine precision movements, is not difficult at all on the other controllers. What you're describing simply does not match up to the experience - certainly not the countless hours of experience I have with both 360/PS3 pads anyway. We can much more easily put this down to Nintendo not really thinking things through when they made this when you consider that you're arguing this is great for FPS - on a console with next to no first party/3rd party FPS.

It's totally the other way around - buttons require more precision to press naturally whereas analogue sticks are very easy to manipulate wherever they are. With an analogue stick, you need only rest your thumb on a part of it and you can easily move it in any direction. With buttons, particularly the ones furthest away, it's hard to press them without doing the 'unnatural' thing Flink mentioned. You've also got to think of it this way - if what you said was true regarding FPSs, Microsoft would almost certainly have done it. It's not a stroke of genius what Nintendo have done - the reason nobody else does it is because it's not the best setup, not because they are the first to simply think of putting a stick there. MS are bound to have tried putting one there on a prototype, since they already went against Sony's setup and were carving out their own, but obviously saw the flaws with it. I think as well, even if it was a better layout for FPS games, which I don't agree with, the Wii U hardly has any, so it's practically bizarre that Nintendo went with such a design.

I'd like to stay too if there's space. =D

Wow, anyone without those games really has no excuse.

I'll just... ...leave these here. =P

It's hard to describe this feeling, but I get it very strongly when I pick it up. It feels cheap to me, in a similar way to the original Sixaxis controllers back on the PS3. Part of that might be to do with the weight (that certainly was the case with the Sixaxis) but it's also the smooth, fingerprint drawing material that they've used. That just doesn't feel like the sort of thing a controller should be made from, and you pretty much never see that from the Sony/MS consoles, nor the gamecube controller. The buttons as well, they just kill the experience for me. When I was using the buttons for an extended period of time they really started to hurt - they're really hard and pretty small, which makes the pressure build up over time.

I had also heard similar, that this was an issue on some launch controllers and Sony replaced them. It certainly never happened to me, and I got the inFAMOUS bundle a while later.

I'm calling bullshit. You don't have a PS4 and I'm guessing you don't leisurely meet up with friends often, purely from the "What else am I going to do besides waste countless hours trawling through Neogfaf" [close approximation] comment yesterday. So, how is it you came to spend a lot of time with the PS4 controller? Also bear in mind that the PS4 is storming it right now, despite currently being sustained mostly by multiformats which people could buy on other platforms to play using a different controller. We can reasonably deduce that most people don't find the control setup so weird they'd go elsewhere, given the controller has been pretty consistent since the 90s. As for 'people are used to it' comment regarding the GC controller. I'm used to the N64 controller and PS3 controllers. Heck, I'm even used the mega drive controller. Doesn't mean I'd want to see them back, because I consider the current controllers better. I consider the gamecube controller better than the Pro, however. I'm glad to see the gamecube controller being reused as I simply find it a lot more comfortable.

Spoken like someone who has no clue. Try using them both, for a proper amount of time (before you start). The PS4 controller, like the X1 controller, feels well constructed and actually feels like a premium controller. The Pro controller's shiny plastic feels cheap, the buttons are hard and uncomfortable to press, the sticks are laid out oddly and the surface of the controller is almost flat with very little ergonomic design. Don't get me started on the triggers. It genuinely feels like an afterthought, which it pretty much is, as the gamepad was essentially made to be the main controller. Saying that, it's still preferable to use for me over the gamepad, but that's really not a compliment. The fact fans were very happy with the Gamecube controller attachment basically sums up how much people thought of that controller relative to this one. If Sony released an update to use your PS3 controller on the PS4, precisely zero fucks would be given. The PS4 controller is almost universally seen as an improvement, whereas I think you'd find a lot of people who preferred the Gamecube controller to the Wii U pro.

Yes, they would. See the PS Vita memory cards. And it's not really disgusting. The elusive Wii U pro controller costs around £40 and that has nowhere near the build quality.

That's price and not cost...we know it's not costing Sony anywhere near that to produce, just like the memory cards for the PS Vita.

Yeah, Wind Waker is about the only game I can think of that really worked because sailing was mostly automatic, leaving you to use the gamepad while it sailed. That's a really specific game situation though and I can't see it being a much better solution for any other game really.

I find looking down and focusing on another screen to actually takes more time than the delay between, say, pressing square and a map appearing. Real-time map updating is about the only use, but then not all games do pause when you launch the map.

Cool, they're some of the slightly rarer titles out there and seem to go for about £18-25 each. Saying that though, maybe this one will end up a bit cheaper.

I want to know why pausing the game to see the map is any different than looking away from the gameplay to see the map. In both cases you are not continuing to play the game while seeing the map. And I would rather my game be paused, actually, if I'm not actually playing. As well as being able to stay looking at the same area.

@Hero\-of\-Time if you can find Shadow Hearts and Shadow Hearts: Covenant (aka Shadow Hearts 1 + 2) then you are in for a cracking treat, if you haven't played them already. Some of my favourite RPGs and a really cool battle system. The second game has aged much better but they're both awesome fun with a great story. If I want a HD remake of anything, it's them.

The thing about evolution is that it gives you an advantage over your competitors, such that you continue to pass on whatever it is gave you that advantage and (typically) the competition dies out and not you. With the Wii U, the gamepad is actually a disadvantage as nobody wants it, and I'd be very surprised if it got passed on to the next generation. To put it in genetic terms, it's a mutation alright. But the kind that causes you to die out rather than give you a cool new ability.

Sign me up please