Verter,Well about my friends, first i'm going to make an analogy hope it's a good one:

have you seen how ridiculous the usage of computers and videogames is always represented in TV series and movies like the worst acting?, like how it always seem like they are trying to make the most posible noise with the keyboard, trying not only to press all the keys but also pressing them in the strongest way as if they needed a lot of force to press the key,  like in the old typewriters?, or when they represent videogames and the actor is moving his thumbs like an idiot pressing all butons and moving the sticks in all directions?, then you hear clackety-clac, clakety-clac a lot of times.

Well my friends became better than me at various games when they started playing a lot faster and lets say agressively?, because they learned to hold the controller and the analog in a certain way as the body of the controller rested on their laps and they held the analog in different ways, it was the first time even before seeing it posted on internet, that i saw all that bullshit that made all the smash melee fights become a game of bouncing like an idiot all over the stages at super fast speed while also trying this "bait" approach to attacking and later comboing, they tilted the analogs so hard you could hear them almost as if you were tapping quickly on top of a table with a coin, a rock, or the reverse of a pen, i did the analogy with the representation in the media, because before that i literally never heard a console controller do that kind of sounds in the real world, just some hard presses of buttons here and there, but hell they punished these controllers really hard, and not only in smash they learned how to apply this thing about handling the controller in other obnoxious ways to exploit things in Mario Party and other games, tilting the analogs furiously with the thumb and the index finger while crossing the arms as if they were trying to rip it off the controller, pressing a lot of buttons at the same time when needed with the base of the palm or with the lateral of their hands, rapid-pressing the R-button so hard that you could hear that "clang" of the spring the shoulder buttons the gamecube had etc.

Personally i always laughed my ass off seing the new ways they "discovered" to be better at the games handling the controllers in strange ways, but man those controllers didn't last more than a few months with that kind of usage.

My deep scientific research in to this via Google University has 5% showing up across the board. but that rate is based off product use over one year and is for the overall industry, and 15% over 4 years. the only figure I found for Sony was for the PS4 and that was a failure rate of .04% based on the first 1 million launch units with blod . seemingly the leading cause.

I see I ruffled some feathers. Anyway, what the heck are you talking about? I stated it was the same for all 3. Has nothing to do with it being PS. Nintendo and MS are facing lawsuits, and I'm sure they'll have one for Sony, as well.

You obviously know nothing about mass production then. When you are making millions of products this quickly, a very small number will be defective for one reason or another. Parts are made within tolerances to get the most out of the manufacturing process. This goes especially when we are talking about moving parts and electronics. And, yes, those defects can start showing up immediately or a few weeks/months down the line. 

A 1% defect rate is actually good, with acceptable ones being ~5%.  There's a reason we have warranties. It weeds out those defective parts that may have made it past QA, only to go bad shortly after being bought. This doesn't point at anything systemic for either of the Big 3.

We are in Feb. I'm sure there are at least 6M PS5s out there, now. Many retailers were selling bundles with a 2nd controller. Many would have bought a 2nd controller on their own. Then, there are people out there, like me, who don't have a PS5, yet, and bought it to use on their PC for now. It did have the best launch sales for a controller ever, at least in the US.

Sony really loves copying ideas from Nintendo

So how many of those 6m PS5's are in the hands of people that would need controllers, and how many are sitting on ebay without any need for a controller?  Furthermore these controllers that come with the console would have to be deducted from the overall number that you are drawing your percentage from, because it should be obvious that for every PS5 on ebay there is one less controller to be used and therefore we would have no way of knowing if it has drift issues or not.

The only retailer selling forced bundles is gamestop, which is just one fish in a vast ocean.

Best launch sales for a controller or not, it is highly unlikely that controller saleas are north of 15 mil when the PS5 itself has not even sold half of that, and even less are in the hands of someone who would use it.  No amount of people picking it up for PC or those buying 2 will make up for that gap.

And keep in mind most people will wait till they have the console to buy a controller.  They are not hard to find like the console is after all.

Phew, this thread really took off. I meant it as an information that this is a thing, but apparently this is a weak spot, as people are feeling the need to either blow it up or downplay it.

To get everyone a bit cooler: the Switch has joycon drift, and it didn't kill it's success. This will have no impact on PS5 sales (well, maybe for a few, but nothing important). Still, I think it is something people need to be aware of, similar to the joycon issue.

Regarding: back in the day the controllers were better... I doubt it. But, the controllers weren't as sensitive back in the day. The more sensitive controllers these days mean you have better control in the games, but it also means that even smaller anomalies will lead to a visible effect. That probably is an explanation for more reports regarding this. This and more people on the internet.

This is a bit disappointing, I hope it's not a hugely widespread issue. I have four controllers for PS4 and one of them has drifting issues, but those started after years of use.
Maybe it's just a matter of the first batches that were hastily made to get them out of the door in this shortage that still continues. There's a notion that the beginning of a production always has more quality problems than there will be later on.

I like the analogy. And it reminds me of an old classmate who used to press the keys of his computers in a very theatrical way too, more or less like in those TV shows you mentioned. That guy also claimed he could hack anyone using a PSP, so he was mockingly called "the PSP hacker" and some other similar nicknames.

During those times, I also had a group of friends who I used to meet. We usually gathered at the place of two brothers, where there was a room where we could be playing games for hours without being disturbed. And, in order to have more consoles and games to play, those of us who had a different console than them just brought it there and there it stayed for months or even years (in fact, there's still an old console of mine at their house nowadays).

Anyway, the point of telling this is, if my friends played games like yours, I would've never ever, by any means whatsoever, brought my consoles (or at least my controllers) to their house. =P

But, at the same time, that sounds like a lot of fun indeed. Good old times...

Certainly they were very fun times, but as you say i never lend my controllers because the ones used for "our tournaments" always ended up completely destroyed, fortunately some of our friends had conections with some sellers so they got discounts when buying game related things, i was looking for videos to see if someone had examples

for games that required button mashing i found this ones thats is very short:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppDO4ZBiXuo

and this one that has an example with how with a pinching like position of the index and the thumb you could button mash to the victory, showing a  mario party minigame example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjnOaw9WVo0

This one is what i referred to hahahah, this dude shows a lot of methods or techniques to button mash as fast as possible using all kinds of holdings and finger positions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02bfkRDxlMQ

i couldn't find one quickly of strange ways of holding the analog and tilting it like a madman, but the concept its the same to those videos you hold the analog in a special way then you shake it or rotate it furiously to be faster in a certain game, then  with all that use they will be so used up so fast, they will end up too loose, or stuck, or will have drift/unwanted movement.

Drifting is annoying. If anyone has problems with drifting I would advise to use some contact cleaner spray because there is probably some dust particles somewhere inside. It works quite well for me. Don't throw away faulty controllers, instead repair them yourself and save some money. Also helps saving the planet a little bit.