Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to the hardware they play on. Some like giant arcade sticks, some prefer smaller gamepads, and the debate between symmetrical and asymmetrical joystick designs will continue for centuries. What everyone can agree on is that a controller that replaces every button with analog sticks has no place in this universe.
While joysticks have been a part of console gaming since its earliest roots, the gamepad has come to more or less dominate couch gaming. The Nintendo 64 was the first console to introduce a small analog joystick to its gamepad-style controller, followed by the Sony DualShock for the PlayStation, which increased the number of analog sticks to two. We still haven’t fully decided where those analog sticks should be placed on a controller, but we’ve pretty much decided that two is all we need, or are we?
That’s the question one talented YouTube hardware hacker is asking, with his latest video showcasing a highly customized Xbox One controller that includes analog joysticks (with seven of them in total). It’s completely cursed, but it’s also completely functional.
In addition to the standard pair of controller joysticks, this special guy’s D-pad has been swapped out for a stick, all the face buttons have been swapped out for a stick, all four action buttons have changed with a stick, and not even the shoulder buttons were secure. So to press A, B, X or Y, for example, you have to push the joystick in one of four different directions. The mod required a lot of soldering and in some cases strategic scraping of the sensor material so that the joysticks would not register any input when in the center position.
The controller case also required extensive modification (translation: it was hacked with a rotary tool) which is hidden by custom-designed and 3D-printed spacers for the additional joysticks to sit on. The final product looks more or less professional. , and as you can imagine, it’s a complete nightmare to play with, as Solderking demonstrates later in this video. Even more difficult are the simple things, like trying to navigate the settings menus using the new assortment of sticks. Why anyone would do that is beyond us, and it reminds us of New Coke: an interesting experiment that no one should ever try again.