Hey all, I'm going to provide a comparison of 6 video game controllers

Keyboard+mouse

Wiimote+nunchuk

Xbox360 controller

sixaxis/dualshock3

classic controller

Gamecube controller

I decided that reviewing the PS2 and xbox controllers was unnecessary, as the only real difference between them and the GC controller mostly come down to personal preference.

I am making each catagory worth as much as any other.

Anything that comes down to personal preference, I shall leave alone

The best controller for a catagory gets 5 points, 2nd best gets 4. If there is a tie between 2 controllers for first, they both get 5, no-one gets 4, and 3rd place gets 3 etc

Wireless (not connected to the console by a wire)

PS3, Wii and Classic get 5 points for having wireless controllers bundled from the start

360 gets 2 points for having wireless controllers with the exception of wired controllers bundled at the start with the core

PC and GC get 1 point for having optional wireless controllers

(I would like to hand the victory to Wiimote, because it uses AA batteries instead of a proprietry battery, but that's just personal preference so I shant)

Player Identification

PSWii60 and classic all get 5 points for having a light indicating which player they are in split screen multiplayer

K+M also gets 5 points, because it is not the fault of the controller that there is no split screen multiplayer

GC gets 0, because (assuming the controllers are the same colour, there is no way to tell which player you are once the cords get tangled

Analogue inputs x dimensions of freedom of each (analogue triggers/buttons count as 1, analogue sticks count as 2, plus pads count as 1, because unlike analogue sticks, they dont register how far down they're pushed, just the angle at which they are pushed, motion sensitivity in 3 dimensions counts as 3, rotation sensitivity in 3 dimensions counts as 3, Mouse and IR pointer have 2 degrees of freedom, therefore count as 2)

That was a mouthful ^.

Wii has 15 and thus earns itself 5 points

Wiimote itself has 6 of motion, and 1 from the plus pad

Nunchuck has 6 of motion, and 2 from control stick

PS3 has 12 and thus gets 4 points

4 from analogue sticks, 6 from sixaxis tech, 2 from analogue shoulder buttons (the plus pad doesnt have 360 degrees of freedom, it's just 4 buttons, so no points from that)

GC, classic and 360 are all tied on 7 I believe, and so earn 3 points each

PC has a mere 2 degrees of freedom, and thus gets 0

Digital Inputs

PC wins on 'lots' and gets 5 points

PS3 15 (14 for developers) (4 arrow buttons, the 2 analogue sticks can be pressed as well, 2 digital triggeer buttons, [] triangle, O, X start select and the PS button) and gets 4 points

Wii, 360 and classic both have 9 (8 available to developers) and get 3 points each

GC 6 (a b x y z start) no points

Speaker

Wiimote has a speaker - 5 points

The rest lack speakers - 4 points each

Rumble

GC, Wii, 360 all get 5 points for rumble

PS3 gets 2 points for sony's 13th hour addition of rumble in the dual shock

Classic and keyboard get 1 for having no rumble

memory

Wiimote gets 5 points for having 8 kb of memory

All others get 4 points for lacking such functionality

Finally, Price

Keyboard gets 5 points. Before you argue with me on this, count the number of keyboards in your house. Count how many mice you have. Keyboards can always be got for free, as can mice. If you want extra features, you can pay more

360 $37

4 points here, nice price

GC Wow, I can't seem to find data. I'm assuming it was somewhere in this range

3 points

PS3 $55

2 points

Wiimote+nunchuk/classic $40 + $20

1 point

Tally

Wii 34/40

PS3 30/40

360 30/40

Classic 26/40

PC 25/40

GC 20/40

Comments?

And before you say, GC controller should have 100 bonus points for being so damn comfy, I agree, but that's hardly scientific :P

*edit* The 360 controller uses the analogue sticks as buttons, which gains it two points to tie with the Sixaxis/Dualshock

You shouldn't give the same weight to every category I think, and you should might have added some categories together in order to make them not to important (additional features for example, instead of speaker and memory).

On top of that, most of this is hardly important, cause at last it all comes down to comfyness and such stuff...

Well, it's a nice comparison, but it ultimately all comes down to personal preference. And yes, the 'Cube controller is definitely the most comfortable controller ever conceived by mankind. :)

just don't understand the digital input of x360...why only 7? it has the same inputs of the PS3: d pad, 4 triggers, 4 buttons and you can press the anlogue sticks...

@ nintendo_fanboy, this way isn't perfect, but it maintains objectivity. any feature is considered equal. And yes, personal preference does come into it

@ spectrumglr - the PS3 has 4 analogue buttons, up, down, left and right that the 360 does not, the 360 has an analogue d pad, which the PS3 does not.

The 360 analogue sticks are buttons too? *edits*

Nice look on things, a couple of points that concerned me though.

First being, where you've listed Memory and Speaker, surely if a product lacks this it should get a 0 not 4, as that means Wii's use of it is underminded because the advantage of having them is minimal in comparison.

Also, the battery thing, having to change batteries and buy AAs is surely worse then just recharging it from any standard USB cable like the PS3 controllers?

Also, this:

"Rumble

GC, Wii, 360 all get 5 points for rumble

PS3 gets 2 points for sony's 13th hour addition of rumble in the dual shock"

I understand the PS3 but PS2 controller which came out before GC controller had Rumble and you could use that on the PS3 if you wanted.

And this doesn't consider quality in the rumble, have you felt the Wii rumble lately? It's an insult compared the DS3. Nothing more then a buzz, it's noisy too. I should feel it not hear it.

To be accurate, the Wiimote and Nunchuck don't have 6 dimensions of freedom since they don't have gyros. Both have 5: xyz-acceleration and xz-rotation, although the Wiimote can detect y-rotation to a degree via the IR-sensor. Since you're counting the IR-sensor separately, the Wii should get these points:

Wiimote 3 + 2 + 2 + 1
Nunchuck 3 + 2 + 2

Total: 15 points (same as the original since you forgot to add the IR for Wiimote)

Also, why count the plus pad as an analogue input? It's a digital input, nothing analogue about it.

Yeah, it felt a bit weird giving 4 to 5 consoles in those questions, but it seem fairest to do it that way.

I use rechargable AA batteries for my Wiimotes (and indeed for everything) They get good battery life, and they have the advantage that when they die you put them in the charger, and take out a newly charged set. With the PS3 if you game for long enough you'll have to plug in eventually

You can't pick and choose the best bits of the Dualshock2 and Sixaxis.

The dualshock 2 lacked motion sensitivity, player indicators and (i believe) the triggers were digital not analogue

sixaxis lacked rumble

dualshock 3 was released late

As for rumble strength, I believe that's another personal preference thing

Fair enough on the top 2 points, although i have 3 PS3 controllers, so just quickly swap when one's running low, it's the same for the AA batteries really, you have to swap them at some point.

GC controller is in this, why, it also lacked motion control and player indicators? You cannot play every game on the Wii with the GC controller after all (right?). DS2's buttons were analog, not sure about shoulder buttons but i think they were too. If you had included the Xbox, DS2 and Sixaxis in this as well, the cool as many people still use those.

Rumble strength is personal preference, that is true.

I spose then you can have one on charge whilst you use teh other, except it doesnt help for multiplayer, then someone will have to plug in their DS3 eventually. But I can understand why you might prefer to keep the batteries in and charge just by plugging in, which is why I left it as a personal preference thing.

I should have made it more clear, the GC controller was put in there are a representative of the 6th generation, not particularly as a controller for Wii games.

Yes, I could have used DS2 or xbox controller, but they are fairly similar to the GC controller, and so I wrote about the one I know best