What’s the best current-gen video game controller?

An exhaustive 13-part analysis of absurd granularity

Earlier this year, while working on my Top 10 Games of 2019 list for the podcast – it’s a good episode, you should listen!– I was switching between my PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch a lot, playing through games on all three platforms to help nail down the list. Over that month or so I spent crunching on various games, I found myself thinking a lot about the differences between the three current-gen platforms, and the relative strengths and weaknesses one notices when switching back and forth. One of the most obvious, of course, is the controller, your primary point of contact with any video game system and, as a result, one of a system’s most crucial assets. 

That got me thinking – what is the best current generation video game controller? It’s an interesting question, because there is no obvious answer. Nobody dropped the ball this time around, like Sony did on the PS3 with the flimsy, outdated DualShock 3, or Nintendo did with the Wii U Gamepad. Preferences vary and no controller is perfect, but you don’t hear much grousing about the PS4 or Xbox One’s gamepads, and while Nintendo’s Joy-con have some clear limitations, I think everyone agrees they’re very impressive for what they are. 

I myself have gone back and forth over the years over which of the major first-party controllers I like the best, and with the generation transitioning to a new era this year (for Microsoft and Sony, at least), I thought now might be a good time to answer that question for myself once and for all. 

So that’s what we’re doing here today, and I have tried to make the process as scientific(ish) as possible, with 13 categories and a lot of extreme granularity. 4 controllers are in competition: Sony’s DualShock 4, Microsoft’s Xbox One Controller, Nintendo’s Joy-con and the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller (I am including both Nintendo gamepads because, while the Pro controller is not included with the system, it’s more analogous to Sony and Microsoft’s offerings and is obviously a ‘default’ controller for many players). The 4 controllers will compete in 13 rounds: Face Buttons, The D-Pad, Bumpers and Triggers, Sticks, Extra Buttons, Rumble, Features, Ergonomics, Build Quality, Longevity, Battery Life, Look & Presentation, and Versatility. The winner of each category gets 4 points, second place gets 3 points, third place gets 2 points, and fourth place gets 1 point. At the end, I’ll tally them all up and see who comes out on top. 

I want to stress that I am writing this article because I really want to figure this out for myself. This isn’t a case of me inventing a series of categories to favor one controller over the others and architect a pre-determined outcome. At the outset, I really don’t know which one I would say is my favorite, hence the effort to make categories for everything I think is important on a modern video game controller, and then thinking through the pros and cons of each gamepad as we go along. The variety of categories and weighted points system should make things as fair as possible as we go along – though of course, this is ultimately based on my preferences and opinions, and your ultimate conclusions may well differ. 

So without further ado, let’s begin the competition and ask: What is the best current-generation video game controller? 

Round I: The Face Buttons 

We begin with the buttons one uses most commonly on a controller – A/B/X/Y on Switch and Xbox One, Triangle/Circle/Cross/Square on PlayStation 4 – and luckily, nobody has messed this one up this generation, because they’re all winners and this is a tight category. Personally, I don’t love the hard, convex plastic of the Xbox One buttons, and I’m not crazy about how the B button curves a little with the controller (the Switch Pro controller handles this better by having the equivalent A button raised a little to stay on a plane with the others). The DualShock 4 buttons are more plain but entirely functional – flat, in a perfectly equidistant arrangement, all equally easy to press (and a step up from the mushy insubstantiality of the DualShock 3). Of all these options, I wind up thinking about them the least while playing, and that’s a big advantage. I might give the edge to the Switch Pro Controller, which has the biggest buttons of the lot and probably the most satisfying to press, were it not for the weird issue where Y and B are too close to the right thumbstick, meaning you always brush the stick with your thumb when you go to press either of them. All the other controllers thankfully avoid that problem. Finally, the Joy-Con’s buttons may be the smallest of the lot, but I wouldn’t count them out entirely – they have a good, satisfying click, and are better than you’d expect for their size. Ultimately, the awkward way you have to curve your thumb to use them (especially when using the split Joy-Con) is their biggest downside, but they are by no means bad. 

1. DualShock 4 (4 pts)

2. Xbox One (3 pts)

3. Switch Pro (2 pts)

4. Joy-Con (1 pt)

Round II: The D-Pad

The directional pad, an under-sung but absolutely crucial piece of any gaming controller, is maybe my favorite part of any gamepad to geek out over – and the one I have the strongest feelings about. For navigating menus, inputting commands in an RPG, or as your primary input in 2D platformers and action games, a good D-pad is absolutely crucial. The DualShock 4 and Xbox One controller both perform admirably in this regard. The Xbox swapped out its very weird ‘circular’ D-pad from the 360 days for a totally normal, Nintendo-style D-pad, simple and unremarkable but perfectly efficient for anything that might require a D-pad. It’s good. The DualShock 4 is even better, sitting partially under the plastic casing to more easily enable multi-direction inputs, but raised enough to ensure precision on the 4 main axis. It’s not quite as good as what Sony came up with for the PS Vita – one of the two or three best D-pads ever made – but it’s a strong design in its own right, and the best of the current class. 

Nintendo, unfortunately, has disappointed deeply on this front this generation. The Switch Pro Controller’s D-pad looks fine on the surface, but it’s extremely mushy in use, and unlike the Xbox One, which curves the space under the D-pad to ensure an even plane, the Switch D-pad is at a weird angle making North and East presses difficult to input with accuracy. It’s also prone to manufacture error, and unintended multiple inputs are frequent. It’s just a plain bad option for pretty much anything other than navigating menus, and the biggest downside of an otherwise excellent controller. The split D-pad on the Joy-Con is obviously controversial for its own reasons, and while it’s not up to par with Xbox or PlayStation, I must admit I’ve always liked it. I’d prefer a more traditional D-pad (they should absolutely release a version with the Switch Lite’s excellent variant), but for navigating menus, playing puzzle games like Tetris, or doing tactical stuff in games like Fire Emblem, they’re 100% precise and perfectly usable. And on 2D games, I’ve really never had a problem – they’re small enough and close enough together that using them feels roughly similar to a normal D-pad. Not the best, but not the worst, as the squishy, imprecise Switch Pro Controller shows us. 

1. DualShock 4 (8 pts)

2. Xbox One (6 pts)

3. Joy-con (3 pts)

4. Switch Pro (3 pts)

Round III: Bumpers and Triggers 

This one is a heated battle between the DualShock 4 and Xbox One controllers. Both are excellent approaches to the top row buttons, but those approaches are extremely different, and it really just comes down to preference. Personally, I like how the DualShock 4 does it just a tad more – the triggers are a little simpler, the bumpers feel more like normal buttons, and they’re spaced in such a way that it’s easy to move between them holding the controller in one position. The Xbox bumpers are meant to be pressed from the knuckle, and it’s mostly efficient, but they wind up feeling better for the kinds of occasional inputs you’ll do in an FPS – like melee, reloading, or throwing a grenade – than the kinds of consistent, primary inputs you might get in a game like Dark Souls. The PS4 works well for pretty much anything a game can throw at you. 

Nintendo again brings up the rear here, though not because the top row buttons are bad. But they’re just that – buttons, and not triggers with any kind of analogue input. That’s not really a problem – very few games rely on analogue triggers anymore – and I actually prefer it for some games, like Super Smash Bros. But it just makes the controller a tad less versatile, with the Joy-Con another rung down due to size (although the L and R bumpers are very easy and satisfying to press). 

1. DualShock 4 (12 pts)

2. Xbox One (9 pts)

3. Switch Pro (6 pts)

4. Joy-Con (4 pts)

Round IV: The Sticks 

This is one of the easiest calls in the race: It’s the Xbox One controller, in a walk. The thumb sticks here are the best piece of the entire controller, and one of the best qualities of any of these controllers, hands down. They’re extremely precise, their height feels good (and makes L3/R3 presses easier), and the graded rubber with a smooth, concave center just feels awesome on the thumb. The sticks feel premium, in a way no other default video game controller ever has. Certainly not the DualShock 4, whose stubby, short, cheap-feeling sticks kind of feel like a relic of the past next to the competition. The Switch Pro controller lands somewhere in between, with a design clearly inspired by Xbox, albeit with slightly less premium build quality. The Joy-Con obvious comes in last here, due mainly to size and lack of precision (FPS games are very tough to play with these, for instance), though if you grade on a curve they’re honestly pretty impressive for the space they have to work with. 

1. Xbox One (13 pts)

2. Switch Pro (9 pts)

3. DualShock 4 (14 pts)

4. Joy-Con (5 pts) 

Round V: Extra Buttons 

This is an interesting category, as everyone took a slightly different approach this generation to the additional buttons that fill out a video game controller. The PS4 made the major innovation of adding a ‘Share’ button to facilitate screencaps and video recording, and it’s a change that’s obviously here to stay. The Xbox One’s lack of an equivalent button, 7 years into the generation, is simply baffling and puts it pretty firmly in last place, as we’re still waiting for it to reach parity with the competition. But despite the prescient thinking, I wouldn’t put the DualShock 4 at the top of the list either. The Share button is nice, but both its placement and the placement of the Options button is a little awkward, a tad more of a reach than you want to make for either of these inputs. And the big touch pad in the middle has never been put to any significant use except as a large ‘Select’ button, a purpose it serves just fine, but which you could certainly achieve with less real estate. Which brings us to the Switch controllers, which take all of this into account and find the more or less perfect arrangement: Start and Select (as represented by Plus and Minus buttons), Share, and Home, all equal sized buttons which sit in the center of the Pro controller, but spaced out to facilitate easy reach from the left or right thumb. It’s the most frictionless layout of these buttons on any controller, and the Joy-Con are quite good in this department too, splitting them to the top and bottom of the left and right controllers. 

1. Switch Pro (13 pts)

2. Joy-Con (8 pts)

3. DualShock 4 (16 pts)

4. Xbox One (14 pts)

Round VI: Rumble 

Rumble is one of those things that feels like it’s been here forever, even though many of us can probably remember buying our first Rumble Pak for the N64, and Sony omitted it entirely from the launch model of the PS3 at the start of the previous generation. So it’s a more unsettled piece of controller technology than we sometimes realize, as the slate of current-gen controllers attests to. Only Sony’s DualShock 4 has plain, vanilla rumble, and it’s totally fine – but both Xbox and Nintendo have played with interesting expansions of the feature. Both the Joy-Cons and the Switch Pro Controller have what Nintendo calls “HD Rumble,” a haptic feedback system that can provide more forceful and/or nuanced rumble, sometimes to extremely impressive effect. The Xbox One, meanwhile, has what Microsoft calls “Impulse Triggers,” where the triggers have additional feedback that can replicate gun fire or a car engine under the finger. Both are quite interesting, and when used well, offer some really cool feedback that enhance the gaming experience. Both also run into the problem that third-party games rarely take advantage of them (a bigger issue on the exclusivity-challenged Xbox One). 

Between Microsoft and Nintendo, this one is close. I would say the standard rumble on the Xbox One controller maybe feels the best, with the most nuance and variety, in part due to the weight and heft of the surrounding materials, and when the impulse triggers are used, I really like them. But the Switch Pro controller is a very close second. The Joy-Con are largely similar to the Switch Pro, and have incredibly impressive rumble effects for their size and form factor, but the drawback is that the vibrations can get extremely loud, especially when locked in to the console itself, or if the game doesn’t optimize for the Switch’s exaggerated rumble effects (Dark Souls Remastered and Dragon Quest Builders II, for instance, both run into this issue). 

1. Xbox One (18 pts)

2. Switch Pro (16 pts)

3. Joy-con (10 pts)

4. DualShock 4 (17 pts)

Round VII: Features

This category is a sort of an all-encompassing ‘catch-all,’ for features that aren’t necessarily standard and may be unique to each controller. Before comparing, let’s start with a brief recap of what each controller is packing in terms of extra features: 

Sony’s DualShock 4 features the TouchPad, a 3.5mm headphone jack for chat and game audio, micro USB for charging, motion sensing via accelerometer and gyroscope, an LED light bar, a mono speaker, and Bluetooth Version 2.1 connectivity. This was all true at launch, and while some production details have changed with subsequent variants, no major features have been added. 

The Xbox One controller was pretty bare-bones at launch. It had the Impulse Triggers, and a micro USB port, though you could only use it for charging the controller by buying the $25 Play and Charge Kit. It did not feature any motion sensing, Bluetooth, or headphone jack – but in 2016, alongside the Xbox One S, the controller was redesigned, adding Bluetooth 4.0 and a 3.5mm headphone jack for chat and game audio. 

The Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons have HD Rumble, connectivity via Bluetooth 3.0, motion controls via accelerometer and gyroscope, an IR depth sensor, and NFC communication for Amiibo support. They do not any ports for charging or headphones, but can be charged by snapping into the console. The Switch Pro Controller has all of this except the IR sensor, and also includes a USB-C jack for charging. 

Overall, it’s a fairly complicated picture. On paper, the DualShock 4 is the most fully loaded; the only thing it’s missing compared to the competition is enhanced rumble or IR/NFC sensors, neither of which are essential. Some of its features are either underused – the TouchPad and speaker especially – or downright obnoxious – that bright, oversized light bar is silly – but there’s nothing one feels one is ‘missing’ with the DualShock 4. The Xbox One, on the other hand, lacks a lot of what the competition has, though it caught up a bit with the S-series revision. All of these controllers are compatible with a wide range of devices – as of last year, they can all be used on iOS devices, for instance – though with the most advanced Bluetooth and good software support from Microsoft, the Xbox One does have the greatest compatibility. Lack of motion sensing is a shame, given how useful that feature has turned out to be for aiming in games like Breath of the Wild or Horizon Zero Dawn. The biggest downside to the Xbox One controller, though, is the lack of built-in charging, a major minus that’s simply unacceptable given how standard it’s been among the competition for so many years. 

The Switch, meanwhile, is also pretty loaded, the greatest drawback being the lack of a port or 3.5mm jack for game or chat audio, which feels like it should be a universal standard at this point. I’d split the difference and put the Joy-Con a hair above the Pro controller, considering their portability and versatility are, in and of themselves, a nice feature to have, and motion controls feel the most natural there. But the DualShock 4 is pretty undeniably best-in-class in this department, and if some of its experiments feel unnecessary, innovations like the 3.5mm jack are clearly here to stay. 

1. DualShock 4 (21 pts)

2. Joy-Con (13 pts)

3. Switch Pro (18 pts)

4. Xbox One (19 pts)

Round VIII: Ergonomics 

This is the toughest round to call by far, because each of these controllers is ergonomically excellent in their own right, and it really comes down to preference as to which one feels the best in the hand. And that preference can, of course, change depending on the type of game you’re playing, or even the length of a play session. The DualShock 4 is a great, natural fit in my hands, though I find it gets a little harder to hold the longer one plays from heat and sweat. The Xbox One, meanwhile, feels slightly less comfortable to me, but I think it does the textured grips better than any other controller, and holds up the best when playing for long stretches of time, staying cool and solid under the hand. Its solid, sturdy weight and heft is also a major plus. The Switch Pro controller comes down somewhere between the two, conforming to the hands more like the DualShock 4 but with a weight and build quality closer to the Xbox One. You also have to consider the layout: Xbox One and Switch use offset sticks, whereas DualShock 4 has parallel sticks. And the Joy-Cons are a different animal entirely. They’re small, and ask one to contort the hands and thumbs in some awkward positions, but they also have the advantage of being able to play with the controllers held in separate hands. If you’re the kind of person who took to the Wii Remote/Nunchuck control scheme back in the day, the Joy-Con is an even more refined version of that, and long play sessions can be amazingly comfortable with greater freedom of the arms and hands. It really is one of my favorite ways to play a game, surprisingly enough. 

Overall, I think the DualShock 4 ekes this one out thanks to its accommodation of multiple play styles: It’s equally good for holding with one finger on the trigger row or two fingers (like my podcast co-host Sean Chapman does), while the latter orientation is more awkward for the other controllers. And I find I can adjust the way I hold the DualShock 4 on the fly with more ease than the other gamepads. I put the Xbox One second because it’s such a proven, time-tested, sturdy design, and then the Switch Pro controller. The Joy-Cons bring up the rear, but only because they’re so different – again, there isn’t a bad option in this group. 

1. DualShock 4 (25 pts)

2. Xbox One (22 pts)

3. Switch Pro (20 pts)

4. Joy-Con (14 pts)

Round IX: Build Quality 

This is another easy win for Xbox, especially factoring in the S-series update, with a hefty, supremely sturdy gamepad that never feels like it could bend or break in one’s hands. The quality of the plastic, the stability of the controller, the material used for buttons, triggers, and most of all the sticks all feel exceptional, especially considering this isn’t even the premium ‘Elite’ version we’re talking about. It’s just a damn impressive build, and it’s something I notice every time I pick it up. The DualShock 4, conversely, takes a hit here. It’s not a bad build quality, by any means – just compare this gamepad to the extremely flimsy DualShock 3 – but the quality of the plastic feels just a little less premium, the buttons and especially the sticks a little less durable, and if a gaming session gets intense, the controller is light enough that it feels like you could twist it in half. The Switch Pro controller sits closer to the Xbox One, with a very sturdy build and good amount of heft; slightly lower-quality sticks knock it down just a hair, while the very bad D-pad and production variance between individual units knocks it down another. The Joy-Con have really great build quality in the hands, especially for their size, with a good sense of weight and stability in whatever configuration one uses. 

1. Xbox One (26 pts)

2. Joy-Con (17 pts)

3. Switch Pro (22 pts)

4. DualShock 4 (26 pts)

Round X: Longevity 

This category is related to Build Quality, but it’s a little different. A controller can feel fantastic and sturdy and stand up to normal wear and tear, but might have underlying problems inside that cause failures and issues, especially over time, or if there’s variance in production. The Joy-Con are a prime example: They look and feel great, but ‘Joy-Con Drift’ – wherein the thumbsticks start registering random inputs over time – is a very real phenomenon, and one Nintendo doesn’t seem to have any way to address three years in. That’s an obvious hit to longevity, even if the build quality feels great. Xbox One controllers have had a problem with the bumpers for years, with a flimsy internal mechanism that can fail and make the bumpers essentially unusable. It doesn’t happen to every controller, but if it happens to yours, it’s a headache. The Switch Pro Controller doesn’t seems to have any major longevity issues, but there’s clearly a production variance in the quality of the D-pad, and at only a few years old, we don’t know if more problems might arise with time. And just by comparison, the DualShock 4 clearly comes out on top here – it may feel like it has the cheapest build quality, but as long as you don’t throw it around a bunch, it also doesn’t seem to have any major issues you need to look out for with time. It’s a controller that’s never given me any unexpected hardware problems, and while I wish it felt a bit weightier or had higher-quality thumbsticks, its overall reliability is clearly a major plus. 

1. DualShock 4 (30 pts)

2. Xbox One (29 pts)

3. Switch Pro (24 pts)

4. Joy-Con (18 pts)

Round XI: Battery Life

This one is just math. The Switch Pro controller wins easily, rated at 40 hours on a single charge; in my experience, it’s amazing how rarely I ever have to worry about it. The Xbox One gamepad, meanwhile, comes in a close second at 30 hours, and the system can even turn off features like rumble to eke out every last bit of juice from the batteries. The Joy-Con come in at 20 hours, which is great, and you’ll probably never even notice if you regularly have them plugged in to the Switch itself. 

All of which is what makes the DualShock 4 such a shameful outlier here. The launch model was rated at an abysmal 4-5 hours of battery life, though in subsequent revisions they’ve gotten it up into the 8-10 hour range. Either way, it’s an objectively terrible performance from a controller that is otherwise so good in so many ways. Keeping the DualShock 4 plugged in between sessions is a must, and it’s a headache in a world where the other systems rarely ask you to ever think about it. If Sony makes just one improvement for the DualShock 5, this has to be it. 

1. Switch Pro (28 pts)

2. Xbox One (32 pts)

3. Joy-Con (20 pts)

4. DualShock 4 (31 pts)

Round XII: Aesthetics

How a controller looks is not, in truth, particularly important, but we live in a shallow material culture so hey, why not body shame these pieces of plastic? Since the early days of the Xbox 360 I’ve always tended to think the Xbox had the sexiest-looking controller, especially with that sleek, white look. The launch Xbox One looked a little plain in black, but the S-series revision made the white version look cooler than ever. It’s my favorite ‘standard’ controller to look at. And Microsoft has also kept up a steady stream of special editions, fun variants, and even the fully customizable Xbox Design Lab versions to ensure the Xbox One controller has the widest possible assortment of colors and looks. If you can’t find an Xbox controller that suits your aesthetic fancy, you probably aren’t into video games in the first place. Xbox is the obvious winner here. 

The DualShock 4 builds on the time-honored PlayStation design, and is the best refinement of that aesthetic so far, with a good assortment of color options available. I think I like the look of the Joy-Con even more, especially with their plethora of striking pastel colors that look great in the unit or in the hand. The Switch Pro controller brings up the rear, and is the only real disappointment here. It’s pretty obviously an Xbox derivative, and lacks any of the color or flair on the face buttons that are a hallmark of the DualShock leading to an overall sense of bland presentation – though it does have that semi-transparent thing going on in the front, which I always love to see. 

1. Xbox One (36 pts)

2. Joy-Con (23 pts)

3. DualShock 4 (33 pts)

4. Switch Pro (29 pts)

Round XIII: Versatility

For the final category, let’s ask one of the most important questions we can pose here: Which controller holds up the best over the widest variety of possible games? That’s what these devices are for, after all – playing games – and the mark of a truly great controller is how well it does across a variety of game genres and gameplay styles. The Nintendo GameCube controller, for instance, was fantastic for exactly one video game – Super Smash Bros. Melee – and pretty lacking for almost everything else. It would not score well here, while the Super NES controller, which worked great for everything that system had to offer, would score highly. 

For this generation, it’s a pretty close race between the DualShock 4 and the Xbox One. Both are fantastic for a wide assortment of games, and you can’t go wrong picking up either one for nearly any game either system can throw at you. If I had to choose – which is, of course, the entire point of this silly exercise – I would say the superior D-pad, more button-like bumpers, and parallel thumbstick layout make the DualShock 4 better for a slightly wider variety. It’s a matter of preference, of course, but personally, I think the parallel sticks with the D-pad horizontal to the face buttons increases versatility. For 2D games, the Xbox configuration can be a tad uncomfortable thanks to the angle of the thumb on the D-pad. For 3D games, I do think the Xbox stick layout is better, and if that’s all you play, then Xbox probably would be your preferred choice here. But the PS4 layout is serviceable for everything and doesn’t have any obvious drawbacks – while those button-style bumpers make games like Dark Souls and Sekiro a touch more accessible. Again, it’s close, and I certainly prefer the Xbox One for some things, but overall, I find the PS4 is the gamepad that gives me the least resistance when moving between genres, difficulties, and playstyles. 

The Nintendo controllers are not as strong here, but that doesn’t mean they have poor versatility. The entire point of the Joy-Con, in fact, is that they are literally versatile, serviceable as a console controller when sitting on the couch (in hands or in the grip), or as portable controllers when hooked into the system. They enable a wide variety of play in multiple form factors, and feel good for more games than you might think. They suffer with anything that demands extreme precision from the sticks, like an FPS, but I’d still honestly say they feel more versatile than the Switch Pro controller, where the disastrously implemented D-pad makes playing retro or 2D games feel actively terrible. 

1. DualShock 4 (37 pts)

2. Xbox One (39 pts)

3. Joy-con (25 pts)

4. Switch Pro (30 pts)

The Final Results: 

1. Xbox One (39 pts)

2. DualShock 4 (37 pts)

3. Switch Pro (30 pts)

4. Joy-con (25 pts)

After thirteen rounds and a lot of obsessive, granular analysis, we have a winner. With a great, sturdy build, excellent battery life, solid ergonomics, cool visual design, impressive rumble, best-in-class sticks, and solid performance in nearly every other category, the Xbox One narrowly pulls out a win here. It didn’t come out on top in the most categories, taking first place in only four spots, where the DualShock 4 was at the top in seven. But it also came in last the least, with only two areas (features and extra buttons) where you could truly point to major deficiencies. By my analysis (and I think this is fair, having thought through all of this while writing), it’s the controller with the least notable drawbacks, and a broad host of strengths. The DualShock 4 – which to be clear is also wonderful, and only ‘lost’ narrowly – has a lot of distinct advantages, but its drawbacks in battery life, build quality, and the thumb sticks are notable flaws. In the balance, it does feel just slightly more ‘uneven’ an overall design vision than the rock solid Xbox One controller.

Nintendo brings up the rear, but not for lack of quality. The Switch Pro controller is an impressive gamepad and wasn’t that far behind the top two controllers, trailing the DualShock 4 by just seven points. Iron out the D-pad issue and throw in a headphone jack, and Nintendo could be fighting for the top position here. The Joy-Con, meanwhile, should really be graded on a curve, given that its design goals and use case are so different from the competition. Coming in with as many points as it got – 25 – is impressive, and at this point, honestly, I’d recommend Switch owners stick with them as their main controller, and maybe invest in a good third party alternative (like 8bitdo’s outstanding SN30 Pro line) as a supplement. The Joy-Con aren’t perfect, but they punch well above their weight. 

So the King, today, is the Xbox One. And in the new generation, with the Series X on the horizon, we already know they’re adding a Share button and tweaking the D-pad to further perfect the design. If they also finally include charging out of the box, it would really cement its lead as the best-in-class controller on the market…unless Sony has something really interesting up their sleeves for the DualShock 5, which is of course a possibility. I’m excited to see what both parties have in mind as we await the new consoles later this year – and any time Nintendo wants to fix the Switch Pro Controller’s D-pad and throw in a headphone jack, I’d be very happy to see that too. 

For now, though, what’s your favorite of the current crop of controllers? Are there any places in this analysis you disagree? Sound off in the comments, because I’d love to hear what everyone has to think.