Xbox made waves not too long ago with the hyper-customizable Adaptive Controller that features remappable physical buttons, 19 3.5 mm jacks for additional accessories, and switchable profiles for different games and use cases. With its latest patent, Sony looks to at least be considering going in a different direction with its adaptive controller design. A new patent, spotted by Insider Gaming, details a controller design with virtually no physical inputs, where players can configure their own layouts—no more arguments about offset vs in-line thumb sticks—and the layouts could potentially adapt to the user’s needs.
Customizing the layout of what, exactly, if it doesn’t have buttons? 🤔
If it’s a touch screen type thing: Fuuuuuuck that noise. I have a Steam controller. It has similar buttons. They fucking suck. Same with modern phone touch screens. I want real, physical goddamn buttons.
Stream deck here…yeah I don’t like the touch pads-never did on laptops and it carried over.
Physical buttons please.
Imagine mashing your thumb against a hard flat surface for two hours. This is only doable if the controller is wrapped in something rubber-like, and some way of providing tactile button press feedback. In my opinion.
While we’re here, the xbox adaptive controller is pretty cool even if you don’t have any kind of issue. It can be customised with third party button pads and arcade sticks which you plug into the adaptive controller. Great for playing basic games. I read that it’s almost like a keyboard in a sense. It’s quite big and you can add a lot of buttons.
One of the best net public good products Microsoft ever released. I suspect it was personal project for someone at MS who had some pull to approve it.
I think the concept fits Microsoft mission - allowing people to connect with technology in different ways. That’s the name of the game. People whine about ai, but voice commands and ai assistants will be good for some people. No more screwing around with 10 point fonts on a 7 inch screen.
Apple products integrate with a lot of healthcare stuff, so it only makes sense if microsoft makes accessible products.
Contrary to most other responses here, I actually love steam deck touchpads. I can do absolutely anything with them, and I love that kind of customizability. As a secondary, optional input method, doing buttonless controller is fucking stupid.
And besides, how the hell can you patent something, that was already in use by someone else? o.0Yeah nah, steam controllers were doing similar shit for dpads a decade ago. Even with indentations, it just wasn’t enough to actually feel where you were on the controller.
