“The Duke” XBOX Controller Sure Was Something.
On January 3rd, 2001, Microsoft would shock the gaming world as they would show off the XBOX as they were hitting the video game market with their brand new video game system. This was quite the bold move as many companies before it had try to capture the massive success of video games, only to come up short and fail. Not to mention the big 3 (Sony, Nintendo, and SEGA) had an iron grip in the video game market. It’s really hard for a new company to enter into a gaming industry as there’s concerns. Everyone knew Sony and Nintendo could be trusted to bring out great new systems and amazing games. SEGA sadly at this point the Dreamcast was in nearing the end of it’s sudden demise and in about 3 months after the XBOX announcement, the DreamCast would be discontinued as SEGA, who once dominated the gaming market just half a decade beforehand, would withdrawal from making anymore hardware and would become a software company only. SEGA was gaming’s Roman Empire, and at long last, Rome had fallen.
With SEGA’s withdrawal from the home system market, Microsoft had a chance to make an impact. Sony and Nintendo were juggernauts in the industry and were keeping an eye on the new kid on the block. Could the XBOX be a game changer, or would it be another company that would fall short like many before it? I can say in retrospect that the former happened and Microsoft took SEGA’s now vacant spot as one of the big 3 of gaming.
At E3 in 2001, a ton of games and a date was announced for the XBOX with a November 15th release date, major game titles were shown such as Dead or Alive 3, a new game in at the time a very popular fighting game series. Project Gotham Racing, a racing game that focused on not only realistic racing, but also racing style, and Halo: Combat Evolved, a first person shoot that would…well change the genre forever and were many people’s game of the year that year.
However the most important thing about a a video game system is the video games and being able to play them. You can’t play videogames without a video game controller. Seeing how this was Microsoft’s first attempt, the controller needed to be something different and what they thought of was…. yeah different.
Nicknamed “The Duke”, the first XBOX controller looked like something out of a science fiction movie. In retrospect, the controller has a mix reaction. Some did not mind this thing or have a nostalgic place for it, as other gamers were not the biggest fan of the controller. US and EU releases of the XBOX when released came with “The Duke” controller. Japan however would get the “Controller S”, a smaller controller with a different button layout than “The Duke”. I’m going to guess this was the case after the feedback of The Duke and Japan players having smaller hands. This kind of gets to my main gripe with “The Duke” controller.
This thing is MASSIVE. I for one have big hands and even I have some issues holding this monster of a controller. The controller has two thumbsticks, a D-Pad, 6 face buttons and two triggers. It kind of reminds me of the DreamCast controller but with an extra stick and 2 extra buttons. The Controller S looks much more like a DreamCast controller with a more familiar and simpler button layout. All this with a giant XBOX logo in the middle, maybe even too big as this logo takes a ton of space.
The controller also had two ports on the top for memory cards. They lacked a screen ala the DreamCast’s VMU but the memory cards do what they are designed to do, giving you extra save space for your XBOX System. The XBOX if I remember was the first video game system to have a hard drive to save your game systems such as save files. Because of storage already built into the system, I rarely saw people that had memory cards that extended the storage space in the system. The hard drive being in a game system was for the time, a game changer and as someone who mostly had a GameCube and PS2, I envied the XBOX for this feature.
I have two major issues with this controller, those being the absolute unit with it’s huge size and the face button layout. 6 face buttons is not really a new thing, heck the SEGA Saturn had this, however as going for a more horizonal layout, The Duke goes for a more diagonal layout, great idea on paper as that’s the position your thumb will be in when you hold this thing, but the buttons I feel are way to close together, resulting in wrong inputs and feeling a bit too busy. I had so many times when I tried this controller out that I thought I was hitting A when I was hitting X or B. Buttons feel too close together. Also the Black and White buttons were something to get use to. They were a little more spread out and smaller than the four main face buttons, this was a nightmare for my thumbs to reach these buttons at times. If you have small hands, the controller was simply too massive to hold comfortably but would not have an issue with the smaller face buttons. If you have large hands like me, you can hold it well but the face buttons were too close together as your thumb could easily hit all 4 buttons at once. Either way you might have issues using this thing.
However I will say the controller is not a total bust. There are few things I really do like about “The Duke”. For one, I really do enjoy the thumbsticks. They feel really solid and not cheap at all. There are groves on the stick itself also feels great. When you play a game on this thing, the stick movement is really nice and is padded so there’s not as much of a chance of bruising and blistering your thumb on the sticks.
Another thing I really like about The Duke is the triggers on the back. One of my biggest issues with the DreamCast controller (What system I played before trying this), was the triggers felt very loose and springy. They kind of had a cheapness feel to them that I never liked. Not the case with “The Duke”. The triggers feel really good, soft, and not as springy. It’s like they looked at the DreamCast controller and found ways to improved on it. I say this as the D-Pad on “The Duke” is… better than the DreamCast but I would not call it fantastic either. It’s ok.
“The Duke” is… not a great controller. There’s parts that are amazing but as a total package, there are just too many flaws in my opinion and is just not as good as the other two controllers at the time with Sony’s Dualshock 2, and the Nintendo GameCube controller. I must have not been the only one that had issues with this controller as in 2003, Microsoft would replace “The Duke” with the “Controller S” as the XBOX’s primary controller. The S was a much smaller and more standard size controller. Black and White buttons are still in a weird spot but they are in a different spot as well, so people who got use to “The Duke” will have to adjust. I also think, the joysticks on the S are fine but don’t have that good quality feeling as “The Duke”.
Is “The Duke” a bad controller, I think there are ideas here but it was not thought out the best and there’s too many gripes I personally have with it. However, there seems to be a fanbase that loves “The Duke” and have a soft nostalgic spot in their hearts for it. If I would rank the controller, I’d give it like a C-. Not a bad enough controller that it ruined Microsoft’s first attempt in the video game market but not exactly a good first impression either. Luckily the launch lineup for the system along with being the most graphically advanced system at the time was more than enough to give Sony and Nintendo a little trouble and showed that Microsoft was a legit player in the video game market.
