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The story
A controller tier list, said to have been compiled from gamer votes, has been making waves on 5ch’s hardware/industry (“Geha”) board. Chinese-brand controllers like the V5P and G7 Pro rank near the top, while the Xbox controller and Switch Pro Controller land near the bottom — sparking debate over whether the rankings are actually fair.
The discussion centers on whether a controller uses Hall-effect sticks (a increasingly popular fix for stick drift), the notoriously short battery life of Sony’s premium ¥30,000 DualSense Edge, and a degradation issue several posters reported — the surface of official PS5 controller sticks turning sticky over time. Posters also questioned who compiled the list and what criteria it used, keeping the thread from settling into a simple “better vs. worse” argument.
What people said
Even if you can't tell the difference in actual gameplay, it's no wonder the others look worse by comparison.
It's barely changed since the DS4.
If it doesn't at least have Hall-effect sticks, it's trash the moment drift kicks in.
The Series 2 is way too outdated for what it costs.
The DS3 was flat-out garbage.
Idiot.
The DS3's D-pad, analog sticks, and button sensitivity were all excellent.
The early Xbox 360 controllers were so choppy you couldn't even control anything with them.
Bro, your hands are just filthy and oily lol
Mine did the same thing, freaked me out too. Even granting it's hydrolysis (the rubber breaking down with age), why does it seem to only happen with the PS5?
The original tweet is getting ripped apart on Twitter.
They're fanatics who flat-out deny that any Steam game is meant to be played with a gamepad.
Battery life: 5 hours.
Half of this is just Sony-bashing.
Third-party gear has downsides too, which makes it a harder pick.
Officially licensed ones work everywhere, so they're generally more reliable.
There's no such thing as "officially licensed" on PC anyway.
I'm a PlayStation-layout guy too — are the analog sticks as good as the DS4's?
If so, I might pick one up.
The DS3 is the "Shinagawa pad" (slang for Sony's own controller, after Sony's Shinagawa HQ) that got mocked relentlessly back in the day for being full of lag and losing out to an Xbox controller run through a converter lol.
Anyone who praises that thing is basically admitting they have no eye for quality.
Even Nintendo ended up matching Xbox's layout, so the asymmetrical stick placement is probably just the most playable arrangement, period.
Though Valve actually uses the PlayStation-style layout 🤭
Honestly, I'd say the exact same thing about the DualSense.
The premium models near the top resist stick drift better, and since the buttons use mechanical switches, the durability is definitely there.
I'd love to see something genuinely new in next-gen controllers.
Microsoft, Sony, and the third parties don't seem to have any fresh ideas though.
You're just crediting Nintendo with "great ideas" because it's Nintendo that did it.
Re: #113
It's less "close the tab" and more just… they're old, that's the obvious part.
These days it's all about having the features.
Background and key points of this discussion
Analog stick “drift” has been a common weak point of console controllers for several years, and more products have started adopting Hall-effect sticks as a fix. Chinese-brand controllers named in the thread, like the V5P and G7 Pro, market this feature heavily — while they tend to hold up well against wear, some posters raised concerns about build quality and support. Sony’s premium DualSense Edge is notable for its swappable stick modules, but its more complex internals reportedly give it shorter battery life than the standard model, leaving posters split on whether it’s worth the roughly ¥30,000 price tag. Several posters also independently reported that the surface of official PS5 controller sticks turns sticky over time, with material hydrolysis suspected as the cause, though there’s no official explanation. The tier list itself also drew scrutiny, with some questioning whether it was compiled from the perspective of someone who plays PC games with a gamepad — suggesting rankings may shift depending on use case rather than being a simple better-or-worse comparison, a nuance the original source material doesn’t fully address.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, “Geha”) thread “All Gamers’ Controller Tier List Revealed! Xbox and Switch Pro Controllers Apparently Trash-Tier at Rank D…“
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