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Sunday, March 31, 2013

Dualshock 3 controller hurts

Seriously... is it just me or is the Dualshock 3 controller downright *painful* to play with? I've been trying to rack up some major gaming time with Resident Evil 6, most notably the Mercenaries minigame mode... but man, holding the DS3 for any extended length of time seems to lead to hand pain, even-- bizarrely enough-- pain in my forearms!

My middle, ring and pinky fingers on my right hand get particularly sore after holding the controller. The two "wings" aren't very ergonomic at all. The problem is, the Dualshock as not changed since the Playstation 1. In over 15 years, the same basic design of the controller persists. Have you ever seen controllers from old game systems like Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Dreamcast, etc.? Can you imagine Nintendo trying to use those same controllers now?

The problem is, Sony seems to think the look of the Dualshock is more important than the function. It's supposed to be held in the hands and allow for pressing the face buttons, D-pad, trigger buttons and analogue sticks comfortably. But Sony thinks the look of the Dualshock adds to the branding of the Playstation system. And to be fair, it does. You see a Dualshock and you KNOW it's Sony Playstation. I know that Sony tried to float a ridiculous radical "batarang" controller design for the PS3 early on. Compared to that, it is better that they stuck with the Dualshock design. But really what they SHOULD have done was to refine the design to be much more ergonomic and comfortable in the hands.

The first times I held an Xbox controller S, I was impressed by how molded it felt to my hands. It's not perfect, but it feels like someone went to a lot of trouble to make it ergonomic and sculpted.

So I am trying to find a PS3 controller that mimics the Xbox feel and shape, or at least is more COMFORTABLE than the Dualshock. I ordered this controller from Futureshop, the Dreamgear Phenom Wireless PS3 Controller. But I am always wary of 3rd party gaming  accessories, especially controllers. They are almost always worse than the original ones. So I don't know if this one is any good.... I just hope it plays as good as it looks....


later
don

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