I much prefer the 360 controller as it fits nicely in my hands and I never feel like I have to contort to do moves in games. The PS controller is nice but the triggers on the 360 controller just make it feel better IMHO. I also much prefer the offset analogs on the 360 controller over the side by side ones on the PS.
If there were games I liked on Wii I may like it better than PS but I haven’t spent long gaming sessions on there to tell. I do know I wish there were more buttons on the remote or it was more ergonomic in my hand when used with the nunchuck.
The 360 is very nice, with the one exception that I find the bumpers to be a little too high to reach comfortably sometimes. Plus after years and years holding the Sony controller I had just gotten used to it and making the switch was a little awkward, but now the 360 is probably preferable to me.
I entered this generation on the 360, bought a Wii when Mario Kart was released, and then traded my 360 for a PS3. I rate them thusly:
XBox 360: It’s bigger than the PS3 controller, and that’s plus in my book. Its contours fit extremely well, the triggers are vastly superior in form and function, and the rounded buttons really help. In addition, the analogue sticks seem to be much more aligned for my hands.
PS3: The smaller shape is much lighter, but at a cost. The analogue sticks really aren’t well lined up (playing Tiger Woods on the 360 then the PS3 resulted in a massive change in ability/skill), and the triggers aren’t as well designed.
Wii: The novelty wore off extremely quickly. It took a while to get used to the nunchuck configuration for games like Mario Galaxy. It became a bit more intuitive - but the shaking just isn’t implemented well for most games that I play (Galaxy not really being one of them - I thought that was well-done).
Another vote for the 360. Came to the 360 from the PS2 (like a lot of people, I expect) and the PS2 controller is basically the same as the PS3 controller… and going back to it now, it feels small and weird, whereas the 360 controller felt comfortable from the get-go.
That said, the D-pad on the 360 controller is INCREDIBLY BAD, so from a technical perspective, the PS3 controller wins just because the freakin’ D-pad is usable.
It depends on the game, doesn’t it? You can’t compare the Wiimote with standard controllers. I haven’t played Xbox or Playstation, so maybe I shouldn’t vote, but I do find the GameCube controller very comfortable, and it’s of course usable on the Wii. The Wii classic controller looks awkward, so I doubt I would ever buy one of those.
Absolutely. How Nintendo went from that great controller to the white brick Wiimote, I don’t know. Those 1 and 2 buttons are so tiny, I can’t play Super Mario Bros. for any extended period of time. It’s less comfortable than the original NES.
I like the 360 controller better than the PS3 controller, though I think they’re both good, and for a game like Zelda or God of War I’d rather use either of them than the Wii remote/nunchuck combo. The Wii remote has it’s place but if a Wii game doesn’t need motion control I’d much rather use a Wavebird.
Yeah the GC controller was nice except for the gating on the C stick. I also didn’t like the triggers much on that one though I liked the location. Didn’t like the sponginess.
360 wins for me as well. I have pretty small hands, so you’d think the dinky Playstation design would work better, but I find the handles (or whatever that part you grip in your palm is called) to be still too small, and awkwardly shaped to boot. The 360 controller, in contrast, fits snugly into the shape of your hand.
As far as the actual controls go, the 360 may have the inferior D-pad, but its thumb sticks are, by a fairly wide margin, my favorites of this or any previous console generation. The dimple in the middle of each prevents your thumb from sliding off (as it is wont to do for the PS3). The action on the 360 thumbsticks are slick and responsive, with good “push” back to the default position when you release the pressure, in contrast to the PS3, which always feels imprecise and “slidey” to me, like there’s a screw inside the stick that needs to be tightened.
I also like that the 360 controller’s trigger buttons feel like actual triggers - that is, you can push them in a pretty significant distance. It helps me quickly differentiate them at a touch from the shoulder buttons, whereas with the PS3, my fingers sometimes fumble between the R1 and R2 (or L1 and L2) because they feel exactly the same.
The Xbox controller feels better to me, no question. The PS3 controller feels small and fragile in my hands. The triggers on the Xbox controller are more like, you know, actual triggers. I also like the tops of the analog sticks; on the PS3’s convex sticks, my thumbs are more likely to slip off or shift position at a critical time than on the Xbox’s concave tops.
But the whole battery/charging thing is a real puzzler. What made Sony decide it was a good idea to have to plug the controller into the console to charge, and then it only charges while the console is on? On top of that, they include a USB cable that’s about two feet long to charge the controller, so if your battery’s low, you have to snuggle up awfully close to the box if you want to play while it’s recharging. And the internal battery, ugh. So much nicer to just pop one battery pack off and pop in a fresh one if you find you’re low on power.
There’s a lot to dislike about the PS3 controller, by my reckoning.
On the other hand, I’m glad the PS3 controller’s battery doesn’t get in the way like the 360’s. I refuse to use a 360 controller with the battery pack just because I find it so uncomfortable.
PS3, except for the annoying charging issues. I’ll go against the crowd and say that the 360 controller is just too big, to the point where it doesn’t quite feel right. The PS3 also has a significantly better D-pad, which is very important for the games that use it.
The GameCube controller may be the worst controller in the history of controllers, between the terrible L/R “buttons”, the horrible location of the Z button, the D-pad that was basically vestigal (why even bother including it in that size and location), and the awkward C-stick. It did fit well in the hands, though, and while I didn’t totally love the execution, I like the concept of different shapes for the four main buttons. It’s sort of a shame that no one really tried that in this generation.
I like the 360. Most of my points about the PS3 controller have already been made, just I’ll just add that I do not like the mushy shoulder buttons on the PS3. I tried playing Batman on it, and it annoyed me.
Another vote for the 360. I like the original XBox controllers too though. You know, the one’s that weighed about 20 pounds and were the size of a basketball.