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A look inside the SNES, PS5, and Xbox controllers with CT scans

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Re: A look inside the SNES, PS5, and Xbox controllers with CT scans

#21

Post by spondylosaurus »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #11
WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #9

DualShock controllers are the best, tactile, haptic feedback and gyroscope Nintendo's joycons also pretty novel, you just clip them on your console in/out and you unlock new ways to play, OP should have included them too, I'm curious now.. a shame its build quality is one of the worst of this decade Xbox's one is pretty basic and conservative, wich is a shame..

I don't want controllers to keep changing. I love the Xbox controller. I also have a PS5 and a switch, but those controllers don't feel good in my hand. The PS5 haptics don't add much IMO, but hurt battery life enough that I'd rather just turn them off.

Most games don't take advantage of haptics, but the ones that do have been pretty cool IME. The physical feedback made web-slinging in the new Spider-Man super fun and engaging, and Returnal used trigger pressure to switch between your weapon's main firing mode and secondary firing mode (and used audio/haptic feedback to let you know when the secondary mode was off cooldown).

Re: A look inside the SNES, PS5, and Xbox controllers with CT scans

#23

Post by auxym »

devindotcom wrote: post #5

This is definitely cool but if you want a more comprehensive teardown of the NES, SNES, N64 and Gamecube controllers, this is the one: https://www.fictiv.com/teardowns/nintendo-controller-teardow... I just love how overbuilt the old controllers are. I still have my original SNES and controllers and as far as I can tell they work as well as the day they were made despite decades of abuse. One has bite marks... not sur…

I seem to remember N64 joysticks were somewhat fragile. Many of my friends as a kid had controllers with a joystick that had lost all springiness and barely responded to input.

I have not are that on any other controllers, even cheapo xbox360 clone controllers from AliExpress.

Re: A look inside the SNES, PS5, and Xbox controllers with CT scans

#24

Post by Macha »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #11
WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #9

DualShock controllers are the best, tactile, haptic feedback and gyroscope Nintendo's joycons also pretty novel, you just clip them on your console in/out and you unlock new ways to play, OP should have included them too, I'm curious now.. a shame its build quality is one of the worst of this decade Xbox's one is pretty basic and conservative, wich is a shame..

I don't want controllers to keep changing. I love the Xbox controller. I also have a PS5 and a switch, but those controllers don't feel good in my hand. The PS5 haptics don't add much IMO, but hurt battery life enough that I'd rather just turn them off.

Luckily, the Xbox controller fundamentals have changed relatively little since the move from the Duke to the S controller during the life of the original xbox. I say luckily, because I feel they got pretty close to the optimum design around then, and later enhancements have been about mostly shuffling the battery components around.

Re: A look inside the SNES, PS5, and Xbox controllers with CT scans

#25

Post by WhereIsTheTruth »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #11
WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #9

DualShock controllers are the best, tactile, haptic feedback and gyroscope Nintendo's joycons also pretty novel, you just clip them on your console in/out and you unlock new ways to play, OP should have included them too, I'm curious now.. a shame its build quality is one of the worst of this decade Xbox's one is pretty basic and conservative, wich is a shame..

I don't want controllers to keep changing. I love the Xbox controller. I also have a PS5 and a switch, but those controllers don't feel good in my hand. The PS5 haptics don't add much IMO, but hurt battery life enough that I'd rather just turn them off.

Well, I use a controller to game and interact with the game, the most ways to game, the more fun I have

Hence why I bought a Nintendo Switch, the premise is: to have fun

Re: A look inside the SNES, PS5, and Xbox controllers with CT scans

#26

Post by willcipriano »

auxym wrote: post #23
devindotcom wrote: post #5

This is definitely cool but if you want a more comprehensive teardown of the NES, SNES, N64 and Gamecube controllers, this is the one: https://www.fictiv.com/teardowns/nintendo-controller-teardow... I just love how overbuilt the old controllers are. I still have my original SNES and controllers and as far as I can tell they work as well as the day they were made despite decades of abuse. One has bite marks... not sur…

I seem to remember N64 joysticks were somewhat fragile. Many of my friends as a kid had controllers with a joystick that had lost all springiness and barely responded to input. I have not are that on any other controllers, even cheapo xbox360 clone controllers from AliExpress.

The kids call it stick drift today, its a big problem on the switch I heard.

Re: A look inside the SNES, PS5, and Xbox controllers with CT scans

#27

Post by guhidalg »

endisneigh wrote: post #15
guhidalg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I am a software engineer at a writing instruments company... long story.

Oh interesting. The writing instrument company needs scans this good?

Yes, and I wish it was even more accurate :)

Doing metrology on production parts normally means disassembling them and putting them under the microscope or X-raying them, but sometimes there are problems that only manifest when the pen is assembled and closed. There's a lot of geometry that isn't visible externally in a pen, more so in certain markers. The writing systems are very sensitive to manufacturing tolerances, and out of spec parts are perceived by users as a bad pen or marker (which we don't want). With a normal X-ray, it is very difficult to resolve internal geometry deep in the assembled pen with any degree of accuracy.

CT scans allow us to examine internal geometry non-destructively and they are relatively fast to run. The scans shown in that blog post I would guess took about 6-8 hours of scanning + 1 hour of reconstruction to generate. Once you start the machine, it's completely automated from there, so you don't need a technician or an engineer sitting at the X-ray machine (which BTW is running Windows XP or something worse) takings images of parts.

Re: A look inside the SNES, PS5, and Xbox controllers with CT scans

#28

Post by Firmwarrior »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #3

Remember those translucent DualShock controllers for PS2? There was nothing cooler than watching the little motor spin around when you activated rumble in-game. I'd love if Sony put out a similar style DualSense for PS5.

You can get a translucent replacement chassis for pretty much any game peripheral and put it on yourself, just hit up AliExpress with $3 and a lot of patience

Re: A look inside the SNES, PS5, and Xbox controllers with CT scans

#29

Post by msk-lywenn »

willcipriano wrote: post #26
auxym wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to remember N64 joysticks were somewhat fragile. Many of my friends as a kid had controllers with a joystick that had lost all springiness and barely responded to input. I have not are that on any other controllers, even cheapo xbox360 clone controllers from AliExpress.

The kids call it stick drift today, its a big problem on the switch I heard.

The n64 joystick gets a bigger and bigger deadzone. It’s different than drifting, in fact it’s quite the opposite: on the n64 you have to push harder to move your character while with the drifting you struggle to get it not to move

Re: A look inside the SNES, PS5, and Xbox controllers with CT scans

#30

Post by Gamemaster1379 »

auxym wrote: post #23
devindotcom wrote: post #5

This is definitely cool but if you want a more comprehensive teardown of the NES, SNES, N64 and Gamecube controllers, this is the one: https://www.fictiv.com/teardowns/nintendo-controller-teardow... I just love how overbuilt the old controllers are. I still have my original SNES and controllers and as far as I can tell they work as well as the day they were made despite decades of abuse. One has bite marks... not sur…

I seem to remember N64 joysticks were somewhat fragile. Many of my friends as a kid had controllers with a joystick that had lost all springiness and barely responded to input. I have not are that on any other controllers, even cheapo xbox360 clone controllers from AliExpress.

N64 controllers had an issue where once the lubricant dried out the joystick began grinding it's contained bowl into dust. It's not a springiness issue as much as it is a holder destruction. Massive design flaw.
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