Based on my searches, I could only find 3* controllers that have this feature (and interestingly, they all do it differently). There’s the new 8BitDo Pro 3, where the face buttons are magnetic, the GameSir Supernova, where you have to remove the faceplate to swap the buttons, and the GameSir Tarantula Pro/T3 Pro, where there’s a motor that swaps the ABXY layout.
This seems like a pretty simple feature that would be really useful for multiplatform controllers. Lots of controllers advertise that they work with PC, Xbox, Switch, Android, etc., but very few of them give you the option to physically swap the ABXY layout. They usually have one layout or the other. I would get not having these features on a really budget controller, but there are some controllers that are really expensive and don’t have this neat little button swap thing (instead opting for gimmicky things like a screen)
edit: * There’s actually 4**, I forgot about the Nyxi Flexi!
edit 2: ** Nope, it’s five***, the Gulikit KK3 Max has replaceable button caps! Very cool!
edit 3: *** Actually, the older KK2 Pro also seems to have this feature too, as well as a few other older Gulikit controllers, so I guess it’s >6? That’s cool. With four different companies (GuliKit, 8BitDo, GameSir, and Nyxi) offering at least one controller with this feature, I guess it’s not as rare as I thought. Who knew?
Personally, I’d prefer if games and such would use universal face button glyphs on-screen.
I’ve switched back and forth between Xbox, Nintendo, and PlayStation controllers so much that I really don’t have a mental map of which button is which, and in game I’m usually not looking at my controller to be able to tell.
Press the X button.
Wait am I playing PlayStation or Xbox or Nintendo.
At least playstation uses a visually distinct set of symbols so you can’t confuse them with the other two. I think it’s really annoying that Xbox and Nintendo both use ABXY, but swapped for some reason. I grew up with Nintendo, so that layout makes “more sense” to me than the unfamiliar Xbox layout, but yeah, I would prefer either a universal layout (maybe neither ABXY or the shapes, perhaps something different that everyone could agree on? Because if you chose the Xbox layout, fans of the Nintendo layout would get mad and vice versa)
What should that universal layout be though? Maybe the cardinal directions, ESNW? Or perhaps something unique like IJKL? Or maybe the starting letters of colours (RGBA? Transparent button would be cool. CMYK? Printer ink buttons!) Or perhaps not letters, maybe symbols? Like mountain (jagged teeth), sea (wavy line), wind (swirly line), and stone (filled in circle)? Or punch, kick, special move (maybe energy blast), and different special move (maybe healing)?
What should that universal layout be though?
Just a picture of 3 of the 4 buttons with one highlighted (e.g. left/right with bottom highlighted) would be simple enough.
This is what Switch UI does, in order to accomodate sideways JoyCons.
I always assumed Nintendo’s buttons are that way round because Japanese is read right-to-left.
The symbols thing already exists though: that’s PlayStation. It’s well documented that the four symbols even had original meanings: a square for menus, a triangle to represent a camera’s FOV, and O/X for yes/no, respectively.
You’ve got to admit it’s pretty funny that we’ve whittled the field down to three console manufacturers and they all put the ‘X’ button in a different place.
well if you make the playstation layout the universal layout both Xbox and Nintendo layout fans will hate you. Interesting the PS symbols had actual meanings rather than being somewhat arbitrary like with ABXY (though you could argue A means accept/action and B means back)
I think the nintendo layout looks like it makes more sense since it’s AB XY when you read top to bottom, whereas with Xbox layout it’s left-to-right but also bottom-to-top. Idk, I guess it’s all just preference (+ the fact I grew up with nintendo so there is certainly a bias towards that layout)
That’s right, circle was accept because drawing a circle in Japanese is their equivalent to a tick, x is cancel like a cross, I think the square was supposed to look like a piece of paper, I can’t remember what the triangle symbolised.
What I’m much more salty about is that controller manufacturers all seem to go out of their way to actively prevent you from just taking the controller apart and rearranging the face buttons as you see fit, usually by way of keying them with little fins around their sides when otherwise there would be nothing to prevent you from doing so. My Gamesir T4 Mini is this way and it’s infuriating, because even if you have Steam Input set to Switch controller mode, or whatever, half of your games inevitably give you the button prompt for that position on an Xbox controller anyway, and the other half respect the positions of the Nintendo style layout and you never know which is which until it’s too late. For PC gaming I’d much rather just reorganize the thing into the XBox layout which seems to be the most compatible default for games and leave it that way.
You know, I’ve not thought about that specific feature, but I have noticed that 3rd party controllers, even the ones that charge “pro” controller prices, rarely offer more features than a base first party controller, and sometimes even have missing features
It’s a rather strange phenomenon which caused me to not upgrade from my beat up dualshock 4 lol
I’ve had the complete opposite experience. So many third party controllers offer hall effect joysticks, macros, back pedals, options for linear or button triggers, etc at a much lower cost than first party controllers. The only thing they’re missing is the dual sense motors but that’s proprietary.
I recommend checking out the 8bitdo controllers mentioned in the post, and the FANTECH WGP14-V2 which you can find on AliExpress.
What third party controllers do offer is value (you can get some amazing budget controllers these days) as well as hall effect sticks and triggers (some newer models have TMR sticks, which apparently use lower power) meaning no stick drift and it will last longer.
Speaking of the DS4, I still have one, and I spray-painted it and I think it looks pretty cool! It’s a mix of spray paint (on the body, d-pad, and triggers), 3D printed face buttons, and cheap plastic I bought for that tiny little PS button. Makes it look more unique, but I forgot to tape the electronics and think I snapped one of the ribbon cables, so wireless is borked. I works fine wired though, so it’s all good.
When I was looking for replacement controllers the best I found was basically ones that have the same as what the ds4 already offers, or maybe an addition of paddles for more than the price of a dualsense pro lol
If I buy a controller now I’d like it to be something like those steam controller 2 leaks we had a while back honestly, a 2nd touchpad, touch capacitive sticks, and paddles (plus keeping gyro, cause for some reason many controllers don’t have that still lol)… that’d be enough additional buttons for me to consider upgrading
Which is to say hopefully valve time is quicker than the breaking down of my ds4… (if it was SC3 it’d never come so at least it’s only 2 /j)
You can see how shredded my left stick is at this point lol. It’s basically hard plastic. Though I had this controller for… 9 or 8 years?
Ooh yeah that looks pretty rough. I will say that there are definitely good third-party controllers nowadays for a pretty good price. There are some sub $30 options from both 8BitDo and GameSir (their Ultimate 2C and Nova 2 Lite respectively both seem really good), and a bunch of good controllers that are around the same price as a ds5, maybe a bit less from all sorts of companies with loads of different layouts and both membrane and mechanical buttons. There’s even a few with the ps-like symmetrical layout like the GameSir Tarantula Pro, their wired Tegenaria Lite, and the 8BitDo Pro series.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ as long as this one works, im not in a big rush to swap it out to something that’d give me the same or worse experience anyway :3… if im gonna spend any kind of money it’s be for additional features lol… or if this one breaks, in which case I can pick up another ds4 or a dualsense.
I don’t really care about saving 10 bucks on something I use daily, so I’d take something I know will last me another decade rather than the third party controllers which looking up usually leads to numerous threads of them breaking x3
I mean, fair enough. The ds4 controller is a good reliable controller and has worked for many years and probably will work for many years to come. Only downside is micro-usb though…
I had two with my PS4 Pro, and both of them got stick drift (one after a disappointingly short amount of time). Just my personal experience though…
I don’t look down at my controller to read the button labels. Swapping them physically makes no sense to me, more moving parts to complicate manufacturing for a feature that I’m never going to look down at.
I use a black 8BitDo Pro 2, dark enough that the button labels that technically exist aren’t readable. Looks nicer that way, don’t need 'em.
I grew up a Nintendo kid, that’s what’s ingrained in my head, and it is a bit of a nuisance sometimes that everything on PC expects Xbox layout. But I just have it remapped in software, problem solved, no reason why I would need to physically move the buttons in hardware.
Why do it in hardware when you can do in software without re-engineering the buttons? Hardware engineering is trickier, so there’s fewer options.
Xbox Elite controller has full button remapping for example. Won’t cover every platform, but it’ll do a fair few.
I like its monochrome buttons to save the need for visually remapping. Same with the Switch, where they need to be, since joycons can be held in several orientations.
Coming from a PC game controller modder, I don’t understand the question. Is there no software mapping of the controls?
Yeah, you could software map them, but it feels kind of weird that there’s so few that let you physically swap the buttons
The Xbox layaout should be the standard. Nintendo changes their controllers drastically every generation, so they have no standard, and even on the GameCube, A was the “default” button. The Xbox controller hasn’t changed the four main buttons in 24 years, and PC followed suit. It’s already the standard, and anyone who would be bothered by a set standard only hurts unification, and will get over it eventually.
Super Famicom/SNES - 1990
Dreamcast - 1998
Xbox - 2001While Nintendo did briefly change their layout for the N64 and Gamecube, they went back to SNES for the DS (2004) and Wii Classic Controller (2006), and they’ve kept it ever since. So that has been their standard for 21 years now.
Well many prefer the Nintendo layout and are used to it, esp. for Nintendo games.
Interestingly, after a bit of searching, it looks like the Nintendo layout came first, but due to a patent or something, SEGA and later Xbox would swap the ABXY buttons. Not saying that either layout should be the “standard” though. Both should ideally coexist (and that includes the PS layout. You can’t really complain about the PS layout changing all the time, it’s basically the same since the original PS)
Also, what do you mean by A being the “default button”? Do you mean that A is for doing most of the interacting (e.g. dialogue, next, OK) or something like that? Because A does that in both Xbox layout (where you interact with the bottom button) and Nintendo layout (where you instead do that with the right button, at least on “standard” controllers. The GameCube controller kind of did its own thing)
Interestingly, it seems that some PS games interact with X and others interact with O. Apparently this is because in Japan, “O” means correct and “X” means wrong, while this significance of “O” doesn’t exist in the US and Europe, so “X” is accept because that’s where the thumb usually rests. Cool!
I appreciate the consistency of the PA controller, but I can not for the life of me remember which side is square and circle. Been fuckin me up since 2002
Why would you physically switch the buttons when you can just set up their layout in the menu in each console? It doesn’t matter if a button is red or blue, X or Y. Only the position matters.
There’s certainly a market for physically swappable buttons, otherwise why would the 8BitDo Pro 3 release with that feature (and advertise it), or the Supernova and the Tarantula Pro. It is definitely a desired feature for some, and I think it’s a bit odd that very few controllers have it, especially given some controllers have very niche (but still useful to some) features (see the numerous controllers with screens, Turtle Beach Stealth Pivot that lets you swap to d-pad centric layout, etc.).
I’m still at a total loss as to the purpose.
The button positions never move, only the letters or colours. You don’t look at your hands when you’re playing, so I don’t get why you’d need to swap buttons at all, outside of a game menu.
If you’re used to blue being left or X being bottom or whatever, do that in the menu. Your thumbs can’t see the buttons so it makes no difference. You have bought a controller to do what a menu does for free at the click of a button (a button that means whatever you assign it to mean).
Probably because it adds functional & mechanical complexity (and therefore cost) for a feature most people don’t need.
Are you really looking down at the buttons often enough that it would actually make a difference?
I mean this feature is available on a sub $60 controller, and many controllers are over double that. You could make the argument that a screen in a controller adds loads of complexity and most people don’t need it, but it exists, because it’s useful to some people (but certainly not all people).
