Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Unveils New Xbox 360 Wireless Controller
adeelarshad82 writes "Microsoft unveiled a new wireless Xbox 360 controller, which features a revamped D-pad that transforms from a plus to a disc. The new D-pad was developed to address complaints from users. Other new features include: A, B, X, and Y buttons that are gray instead of the standard red, green, yellow, and blue; and a matte silver color. The controller includes 2.4-GHz wireless technology with a 30-foot range."
That D-Pad is shit. I can understand not being quite up-to-snuff for playing a game, but you can't even navigate menus with that thing. Forget about entering text. I can't believe it took this long to address "complaints" about the utter worthlessness of those buttons.
What's the reason behind that? Did colorblind players hate the colored buttons? Aren't a lot of games referring to the button colors instead of the button letters?
As for that transformer D-pad... The plus is still there in so-called disc mode, they should have made the remaining parts taller and concave to actually make a disc shape once the plus part is lowered. As usual, Microsoft has a good idea but screws up the implementation.
And the silver color... all I can say is that the circle is complete. The new cool color for electronics is silver, like in the '70s! Next year, fake wood grain!
Truly remarkable.
How did they do it?
Getting rid of the colors on the buttons seems baseless. I can't tell you how many times...
Me: "Press A" ::moving thumbs, squinting:: "... huh?"
Her:
Me: "Green."
The twisty d-pad is cute, but largely strikes me as a way of getting around Nintendo's killer patent on the golden standard. I can't imagine who would want to use the disc, except for perhaps fighting games.
Play&Charge sucks, I hate having to mess around with dongly wires and other crap to use my controller just get rechargeable batteries.
So let's see - Microsoft is a monopoly that destroys companies on a number of fronts, has ongoing uneasy relationship of take and no give with the open source community, hurts consumers through various acts of evil, and then gets into the game business with its monopoly money sustaining the kind of huge loses that normal companies could not withstand.
Sony riled up the /. community primarily because of its copy protection efforts - the Lik Sang cease & desist, had the infamous copy protection scandal, and removed the other OS option.
And for that, Sony is "almost so evil" in comparison? I think that the scale of evil has been distorted somewhat.
Seriously, take a 360 controller, hold left on the d-pad, and at the same time try to rock your thumb toward the up and down directions. It moves a lot! Using one on Windows, you can see in the controller properties how easily it registers diagonal presses. Now do the same thing with a Logitech Cordless Rumblepad 2, which has a very similar d-pad. It's far less finicky than the 360 pad.
So really, how is this new d-pad supposed to fix that?
It isn't because of the disc, it's because of the way that the d-pad acts when you play fighting games (which is about the only reason you'd actually need a revamped D-Pad in the first place). Why is it that every podunk Japanese fighting pad manufacturer out there can put out a pad which works fine with a game like Street Fighter, but you can't seem to get a handle on it? Look at ASCII's pads, figure out what they do, and replicate it. Problem solved.
The reason all modern d-pads suck is that Nintendo has a patent on the "good" d-pad :)
only one everything
Had. It expired.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.