Hi, I've been trying to read everywhere about what's still planned but couldn't find enough information about some of the issues I had, so I figured I'd write them out here.
Heads up--this is a critical review of the controller in terms of how it feels to hold and press the buttons. I realize the Ouya team worked really hard on these, and I appreciate that, I'm just hoping they work a little more before releasing them to consumers.
The fogged, partially transparent, plastic controllers I have with the dev console are lacking. I'm really hoping there are new changes already in the works to improve them.
I want the Ouya to succeed, but I feel like the current controllers are going to hurt it's prospects.
I'd like to detail the issues I have with the controllers in the hope that things are improved before commercial launch.
1a. The thumbsticks feel cheap. The material is not pleasant to touch (like a Xbox 360 controller, Gamecube, etc). Most modern controllers have a slightly rubberized feel to the sticks that feel nice, but also help your thumb stay on the sticks.
1b. The tops of the thumbsticks have no depression. They really need a slight dip in the top of each stick to help hold your thumb. Granted a Dual shock has a rounded top, but it had rubber-feeling sticks which helped hold your thumb. I think something needs to change here, it's much too easy to have your thumbs slide off these.
1c. The sides of the thumbsticks where the plastic was poured has not been deburred (I think that's what you'd say). Whatever it is, there's a nasty circle edge all the way around the thumbsticks that you can catch your thumb on that is not pleasant to touch and just feels poorly made.
Try this: Hold the controller with two hands like normal. Take your left thumb and move forward (toward the top of the controller) and rest your thumb on the controller surface, between the left bumper, and the left thumbstick. Now pull your thumb back towards the left thumbstick. At least for me, for both controllers, and all four sticks, my thumb catches on the stick. This does not feel good. I can get this to happen with my cheap MadCatz but it's much harder to get it to happen as it seems like the 'sharp' edge of the stick is on the bottom side of the stick, not the sides. My Xbox 360 controller does seem to have this edge, but since the thumsticks are rubbery, I don't notice.
2a. The triggers seem cheap. Being able to see inside as you hold the trigger down is a good look. And this is going to sound extra petty, but even just the sound of them being pressed sounds clunky. Ignore that you can see the spring working, you can *hear* the springs working. It sounds like a nerf gun or something. (So two things there, hide the creases better, that let you see in, and figure out why most other triggers don't sound so clunky, most triggers sound smooth).
2b. The triggers can stick a little for me. This is obviously very bad.
3. Changing the batteries is a pain. It's not intuitive, it does not seem very smooth to remove the face plates. I think the face plates are a great way to add personality! (Changing them is very cool.) I don't think this is a good place for the batteries. It's always annoying to mess with batteries. Now you have to do it twice.
4. The material treatment on the controller itself feels common and not interesting to hold. It feels too similar to a cheap toy gun. Most controllers I have for other systems change up the surface texture at least once on the controller. Also, most have the handle parts of the controllers to some sort of textured treatment.
5. Minor, but the touch sensor chip is not perfectly aligned in either of my controllers. I'm not sure how this will effect gameplay, but it doesn't seem good.
On the positive side, I think the form factor for the parts going the palms of your hand is good. The way they fill your hand is good. I also the think the face buttons (o-u-y-a) feel good to press and release. I also think the 'guide button' is not nearly as ostentatious as the 360 one, more akin to the PS3. And like I mentioned, changing the controller plates is a cool idea. The d-pad also seems to not be as terrible as the 360 one. Also the material for it feels better than the rest of the controller. The shoulder buttons feel fine.
Back to the bad...
Clearly I'm not a materials engineer (thus my difficulty in describing the very-slightly textured feeling most modern controllers have on the handle parts), but I don't think it takes one to recognizes these short-comings. I think most consumers, while maybe not able to articulate their particular dislikes, will sense something is off with the controller. I think the thumbsticks pose the most immediate risk to enjoying gameplay, along with the sticking triggers, and the general cheap feeling is going to have people not excited to come back for more. Can you please look at improving the controller further?
I realize from the Kickstarter pitch video that your team worked hard on the controllers and I'm not discounting that. I'm certain it takes a lot of work to get to where you are currently. I just think it takes even more work to make the controllers great which will in turn improve the whole product.
Good luck!
-Nathan
MommysBestGames
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Comments
:)
A couple of things that you may not have seen: The transparent plastic is only for the dev consoles. The actual consoles and controllers will not be transparent, and will (probably) be made of different materials. In the OUYA unboxing video on their blog, they mentioned that the d-pad and triggers are not final.
Beyond that, I feel the face buttons (O, U, Y, A) are a bit too close to the right analog stick. I'm concerned the battery covers will easily come off during gameplay (though I appreciate how the batteries are placed to improve the weight balance). And the triggers are *really* bad (my finger sometimes gets pinched between the plastic). Other than that, I'm fine with the rest of the controller. I'm also okay with the analog sticks as they are, but I do think a lot of people would prefer the rubberized version you mention here.
Right, I saw that as well, that the transparent plastic being only for devs, but I was worried the final plastic would be similar low-feeling quality and finish. Thus I wanted to voice that I hope they improve it.
I'll second that my finger sometimes get nipped a little by the triggers. I think that's in-line with being able to 'see inside' the controller. Since its not perfectly formed to the hole. They did say they weren't final but again I wanted to try to explain what bothered me about them.
Hi noct,
I can concede they spend their time on something more important than the batteries. I think the thumbsticks should be rubberized or at least have a depression on the top, and the triggers need work in many areas.
-Nathan
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On the whole, I guess I'm surprised the controller is as good as it is. With that said, these are things that could (and should) be improved, and I hope the OUYA team will be able to address them in the final versions.
Jerrod
For the rest - the analog sticks in particular do look worrying. I hope that gets fixed. I'd be inclined to agree that a concave or depressed surface on the analog sticks would be better than having a convex surface (the conical depression in the new Xbox 360 controllers are my favourite), but as long as they're rubberised and texturised in some way like the DualShock controllers or Nintendo controllers, it should be sufficient.
My biggest gripe stands that there is no start/pause and/or select button. Quite a shocking omission...
It would also drive the cost of producing the controllers up. Sony and Microsoft were sued for patent infringement because they never paid for their controllers in Xbox and PlayStation, so the initial controllers for the PS3 (SIXAXIS) never had a vibration feature until DualShock 3s were released.
Also, as much as the idea of interchangeable analog sticks sound cool, that would require more openings in the controllers etc, yet again driving up costs and general complexity of the controller, as the battery openings have already done.
Also I think it is important for game functionality to have a standardised controller design, because it makes interfacing with games is consistent. If the analog stick design and shape is the same, then developers can make considerations to the ways that their games work in accordance with this (movement sensitivity, gestures, etc.), as the shape affects how people approach analog stick control. Having multiple shapes could get in the way of this, and alter the player experience for the worse and the developer experience in making their games control optimally.
Not horrible by any means but not the best thing out there. Although i will say i dont mind it really.
For an informed opinion on it, Ben Heckendorn's OUYA teardown video explains how it's better than the famously awful xbox 360 D-pad:
On the X360 they're quickly replaceable, and so is the Wii's if you don't use the silicon covers. The OUYA, however, doesn't rely on a single latch to open the battery cover like those two, instead on two covers that need to be carefully removed, making replacing the batteries a roughly 1-minute long process rather than a few seconds it takes on other controllers with batteries. My vote would be for a charging circuit on future revisions of the controller, so we can do away with all battery removing and be able to charge rechargeable batteries by plugging an USB cable.
I do feel that the DPad seems part way between the Playstation and Genesis 6-button/Saturn too. I disagree with benheck in that the "stalk" design gives bad D-Pads. It's the raised design of the saturn that makes it one of the best d-pads ever - because of it, you can easily move it in any direction without taking your thumb off the center, while in low D-Pad designs, you need to move your thumb around it (oh the days of thumb blisters and putting your shirt over the SNES D-Pad to reduce friction...) Then again, the D-Pad seems very convex, I guess I'll try doing a test program to see how it would fare in a fighting game once mine arrives.
-=Hicsy=-
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The jiggered edges must have been bad luck.
The only reason the top gets stuck is if you twist as you are taking it off and the shaft is stuck in the hole by friction. If you lift straight up it is quite easy to remove.
Perhaps, at minimum, putting a clear notch in the handle where one could open the assembly would make the whole operation feel much more intentional. Having to run my nails (which I keep fairly trimmed) around the edges until I find a spot to pry the face-plates off felt like I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be. I can only imagine that would be made worse by not being able to see the clear hole where the batteries were supposed to go.
The analogs lack grip, but fortunately you can swap the nubs for playstation or X360 nubs, the left one requiring no opening of the controller.
It hasn't been pointed out here, but I heard people complaining about wobbly buttons, I disagree. The buttons feels nice and easy to press, and I'll be thankful not to have ugly friction marks down the road around the buttons. Some of my controllers actually creak when I press the buttons.
The buttons seem too close to the analog, but I don't think there should be a problem, unless someone has very fat thumbs.
A real problem, though, is the lack of tactile feedback on the touchpad. There's no way of knowing if your finger is on it or not
First of all, they certainly are NOT going to scrap the design. It's FAR too late for that. They are very soon going to be in production with these. If they change the input method now, it will cost them to develop and design it, and break all games that are currently being ported over. That is something that no sane company would do.
I think the touchpad control on the OUYA controller IS kind of neat. It has the potential to create some compelling gameplay mechanics that won't be found on other game consoles. I personally DON'T think they should have scrapped the standard game controller. I mean, even the WiiU with it's touch based controller still opted to stick standard gamepad controls on there, because there are far too many games that NEED THEM. For example, I think we can all agree that FPS games control horribly on touchscreen controls no matter what you do, and it completely eliminates the possibility of shoulder buttons and such, which usually results in the inability to run and gun at the same time (you have to take your thumb off the joystick to tap the shoot button).
It was actually a good idea on the part of Boxer8 to use a fairly standard gamepad layout. I personally like gamepads.
Then the touch controls. How many good touch games are there? Most of them are just gimmicky games, and if anything you get some RTS-like games that actually play well.
Also, it's easier said than done. Take the Wii U for instance, streaming the uncompressed video component to the controller at 30 FPS, requires roughly 300Mbps of bandwidth. Having the ouya capable to stream video to four controllers would make the price of the touchscreen and wireless components, dwarf the price of the actual unit.