Game Controllers Are Still Drifting Into Madness
Controllers are more expensive than ever, but old technology means that joystick drift is still a problem
Video games, for all of their technological and narrative advances, cannot operate alone. Nathan Drake’s story is an epic one, but it can’t be told if nobody tells him which bad guy to shoot first. In the same way a book needs a reader in order to tell its story, a game must register an input before it can produce a meaningful output.
While we have toyed with the idea of lightguns, VR headsets, remote sensors, cameras, and motion sensors, there has always been one input that remains our favourite. That is when we’re using our thumbs and fingers. The debate over whether a keyboard and mouse combo are preferable to a controller will reign for a while — forever, probably — but in some situations, controllers come out on top. For console owners, it’s the only choice they have to enjoy the library of content available to them.
Corporations have seized on this, too — with the changing perception of gaming becoming less of a hobby and more of a lifestyle choice (and for some select lucky few, a profession), equipment is now sold at a premium. Remember a decade or two ago when a gaming headset was made from two wafer-thin earbuds and a thin twig of plastic to connect them? Any self-respecting gamer would balk at that possibility. For the right amount of money, style and quality are available to purchase in all of their flashy RGB glory.
As a result, the choice of controller you have defines your personality. There are the usual colour variations and branded options that coincide with the release of a popular game, but you can now also opt to purchase professional versions of controllers with a heftier price tag, often with neat extra features that offer the user more customisation or extra features.
With all this in mind, and with so much attention being paid to gaming peripherals, it’s a wonder that we still put up with one of the joystick’s most common ailments: controller drift.
It’s no accident that the issue has persisted for so long — it’s because the technology under our thumbs has not changed for many years.
Kevin Purdy of iFixit wrote about why PS5 controllers are already developing drift problems, and also why there was a class-action lawsuit in action as soon as February 2021, at the time of writing. The website has gone into a lot of detail about controller drift. For a full look at the reasons why it happens, it’s worth reading in full over there, but to quote Kevin in summary:
Like the PlayStation 5 itself, the DualSense controller feels like a device brought back from the near-future. It has new adaptive triggers and advanced haptic feedback. Deeper inside, however, are joystick modules that could have been held over from when Seinfeld was on the air. In some ways they’re actually less sophisticated than certain joystick technology available in the late 1990s.
Sony isn’t the only company to use off-the-shelf joystick modules, but, like Microsoft, they’ve made it difficult to repair this consumable component. Joysticks have a known life expectancy — it’s listed right in a product sheet from the manufacturer. It’s predictable they would fail, which makes you wonder if it’s a wilful cost-saving calculation on the console makers’ part to not offer more reliable, or replaceable, sticks.
Let’s take a moment to unpack this. Yes, controllers are making gains in areas like trigger control and haptic feedback, but we’re still having to use joystick technology that has been around for around two to three decades.
I recommend reading Kevin’s piece, because it is full of interesting information about what is underneath the DualSense’s hood. Two things leapt out at me when I read through this study of the PS5’s controller, though:
- The joystick module used for the PS5 controller is the same as the DualShock 4, Xbox One controllers, Nintendo Switch Pro controller, and the Xbox One Elite controller. This technology was already dated and had issues — it now exists in next-gen console controllers.
- The company that makes these joystick modules has a product sheet for their designs. For modules like the ones you might find in a controller, the life cycle of the module potentiometer is 2,000,000 cycles. That sounds like a lot, until you think about just how much you rotate the joystick during an average gameplay session — especially one where you’re playing movement-intensive games. That may well average out to less than a year’s worth of gameplay.
What this means is that while controllers have added features and professional versions, they still contain aged technology responsible for controlling something so basic as moving or looking around a screen. In almost all circumstances, unwanted movement is detrimental to the user experience, especially when precise movements can mean your input is registered in a totally different way.
The article lists a few fixes that you can dig up on YouTube which have varying degrees of success, but for a device that is designed to wear out after 2,000,000 cycles, the unfortunate truth is that the product does its job. The problem is that nobody is telling us that the lifespan of some sticks is expected to be less than a year with moderate use.
Interestingly, drift does not seem to be a problem shared equally. While the PS4 and Xbox One seem to escape larger issues with drift, the PS5 and the Nintendo Switch have been particularly hamstrung by this problem.
When I played Animal Crossing: New Horizons, controller drift was present in my left stick, meaning that every so often, my character would suddenly decide to take a few steps northwards, and often when I would rest the stick after moving somewhere. What would happen, as a result, is that if I needed to dig up some fossils or some flowers, for example, my character might suddenly turn and dig somewhere else instead.
While this in itself is not very impactful — I can easily just replace the items I could have dug up — it quickly becomes excruciating. Trying to create intricate scenes with lots of intentionally placed props became torture. There isn’t even an option to default to using the directional pad anymore, because the controller meta now favours using the D-pad as some sort of equipment selection tool.
It’s become a huge thorn in the side of Nintendo, who reportedly sent an internal memo in 2019, quietly allowing manufacturers to repair affected Joy-Cons free of charge, even if they were no longer covered by the warranty. This followed a Kotaku report where people piled in to air their grievances about their faulty controllers. There are some class-action lawsuits filed against Nintendo for the drift issue, but the outcome of these filings is yet to be known, to my knowledge. It’s somewhat of a relief for players affected that they won’t have to pay extra money for a fix, but it is still an inconvenience, and likely not a comfort to the first players affected who had to spend some cash to get the issue resolved.
All of this effort and money has been spent on replacing equipment that has become faulty or has expired. This effort should be going into developing solutions that last for longer periods of time, especially when corporations are very, very keen on getting us to buy luxury versions of equipment. Why hasn’t this happened?
Considering that the only answer for consumers faced with a faulty stick module is to buy an entirely new controller or risk voiding a warranty, the business case for changing the technology might mean less profit for the corporation. It’s like buying a new bike every time the tire wears down or the handlebars become a bit loose. Or, for a closer comparison, think about the last time you needed to buy a new mouse. Did you also need to buy a new keyboard to go with it?
We are overdue for an upgrade. Perhaps a modular approach to controller design would also help — it would enable people to swap out individual parts if they are defective or don’t have enough RGB lights. Unfortunately, at least for now, it looks like many of us will still be prone to drifting away.
