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The story
This thread kicked off with a post claiming “the Switch 2 controller has rear buttons that get pressed by accident when you grip it.” Many users pushed back, pointing out that the rear buttons (GL/GR) aren’t assigned to anything by default, so accidental presses shouldn’t happen — but others who’d actually set up custom mappings for them said the buttons sit right where your hand grips the controller, making misclicks easy. The thread also touched on how the official Pro Controller 2’s trigger-stop feature works, the retractable rear-button mechanisms on third-party pads like GameSir and 8BitDo, and similarities to the Xbox controller’s button layout.
What people said
Re: #5
Huh? It's set as the confirm button by default though?
(FYI, this is a third-party Pro Con)
That's not what you call a 'Pro Con'
If it's not an actual Nintendo product, I don't care
Say what product it actually is
Third parties can't legally sell anything called a 'Pro Con' anyway
it changes the press feel
it has a switch that retracts the rear buttons, like it was made just for me
GameSir's great, right? That microswitch click…
Between that and 8BitDo, controllers are basically in the era of Chinese-made pads now
Yeah, it has trigger-stop
Actually, to be precise, that's ALL it has — there's no analog trigger at all
this reeks of someone who doesn't even own one
Aren't YOU the one who's never actually used it?
It already registers input on the menu screen
Now you're just lying
You know what trigger-stop is, right?
Using it makes the mechanism identical to the Switch Pro Controller's
Well, some cheap knockoff trigger-stops just shorten the analog travel,
but a proper trigger-stop switches over to a microswitch (the same switch type the Pro Controller uses)
I only ever use Joy-Cons so I'd completely forgotten
Now that you mention it, the bundled grip doesn't have rear buttons
If you're planning to keep using Joy-Cons, you should get the official charging grip — it's cheap, has rear buttons, and means you don't have to keep plugging the controller in to charge
Though if you only ever play in handheld mode, you don't need any of this anyway
is like saying an EV has idling-stop!!
Ah, so you really didn't know how it works
I haven't really misclicked much since switching to the Pro Controller 2, but I mashed the wrong buttons so often on other controllers that I almost became an anti-rear-button guy lol
Still, when I'm playing Raiders and panic, I've hit the rear button by mistake a few times and Mantarow popped out (the character that button summons), so I guess having it right where you grip really isn't ideal after all
Can't they just add more buttons near ABXY instead?
A stick-click button sounds nice
I'll give it a try
Yeah, they copied it wholesale
Nintendo should've just trademarked the name and never let other companies use it
Since the Switch mainly comes with Joy-Cons and the Pro Controller is sold separately, people probably just started mistakenly calling anything shaped like that a 'Pro Con'
As someone who uses an Xbox controller on PC, that was a hugely welcome choice
I can't go back to PlayStation's stick layout anymore
The original Pro Controller actually had the PlayStation-style stick layout
Just a little trivia for you
Oh, the Wii U one?
It didn't even have gyro, so I used the GamePad instead
Now that I think about it, everything back then had the PlayStation stick layout
I was also playing on PS3 at the time, so it didn't feel weird to me back then
The Classic Controller
The one from when Monster Hunter Tri came out on Wii?
Steam supports it now too, so you can use the C button to mount and dismount Torrent (Elden Ring's horse) and stuff
I tried the original Pro Controller on PC once before,
but I remember it just not working right somehow
Wonder if the Pro Controller 2 works better
Then you wouldn't even need rear buttons
The reason people want rear buttons is because you can't press L/R and ZL/ZR at the same time, right?
I think you can press L/R with your index finger and ZL/ZR with your middle finger at the same time
Maybe that's the 'Splatoon grip' style some people use?
I use a split keyboard for typing,
so I get that ergonomically, Joy-Cons are actually the 'correct' design
Resident Evil 4's nunchuk controls on Wii felt comfortable
But for regular gameplay, it just feels incredibly annoying
What's wrong with it, I wonder
Unlike a keyboard, a controller's body has to be physically held up,
so gripping one single unit with both hands is more stable than holding two separate units, one in each hand
Maybe what we need isn't rear buttons but a rear D-pad — or even a rear stick
I feel like I've seen pads with 4 or even 6 rear buttons
And there are also game devices and smartphones with rear touch panels too
Besides, GL/GR won't respond at all unless you've configured them
Since they're talking about a 'third-party Pro Con' with a confirm-button mapping, I'm guessing they mean one of those Chinese-made pads
Background and key points of this discussion
The Switch 2’s Pro Controller 2 and similar pads have rear buttons (GL/GR) that Joy-Cons lack, but out of the box nothing is assigned to them. So in the first half of the thread, posts claiming “gripping it causes misfires” were repeatedly met with pushback like “by default it shouldn’t respond at all” — but people who had actually mapped inputs to GL/GR shared firsthand accounts of pressing them unintentionally, since the buttons sit right where the hand naturally grips the controller, so this isn’t simply a case of someone being mistaken. The trigger-stop feature that came up is a mechanism, standard on the Pro Controller 2, that physically halts the L/R triggers partway through their pull and switches the input from analog to a digital microswitch signal. The thread also touched on mismatched perceptions around controller terminology and standards — for instance, how the name “Pro Con” has come to be used well beyond Nintendo’s own official product, and how the original Pro Controller’s stick layout was historically close to PlayStation’s. The retractable rear-button mechanisms on third-party pads like GameSir and 8BitDo were also raised as one example of a workaround for accidental presses.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry, aka “Geha”) thread “Aren’t the rear buttons on the Switch 2 controller seriously in the way?“.
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