As far as I know,
The xarcade products are the only ones that can hook up to one of many game consoles. That is to say, without hacking a controller.
I'm no computer engineer but to make a product that versatile, you can expect some hiccups/quirks. I just wish they were more up front about said quirks.
I think there is a difference between "not being up-front" and deliberate misrepresentation. Unfortunately, this isn't an uncommon occurrence with those who attempt to pit their offerings against existing products which make similar claims, and which also deliver on them. This isn't marketing hyperbole, or a case of system incompatibility. It's touting a feature which doesn't exist, so IMHO, it shouldn't be so easy to dismiss.
I would however assume that most of their user-base is using this thing on a game console more than a pc and with the bundled games they package in with the product, 6/9 buttons is more than enough.
I wouldn't use a device with this limitation on anything other than a single player rig, in which case, it would be fine...unless you had the trackball issue described earlier on that same controller. Technically, the input situation can be made to work, so long as certain combinations never happen, but who wants to think about those things while playing a game? With a two player control, with 6 buttons each, 20 inputs are required just for the main controls. Of the 20, 16 should be limitation free. On a joystick, only 2 inputs can ever be used at the same time, so configuring those to non-modifiers would be the best route. But once you do this, this leaves only 2 non-modifiers for buttons. The are 8 modifiers, but of those 8, a couple are keys which probably shouldn't be used as controls, as they are special to the OS. So that leaves 6, which means at the end of the day, you are still short 4 proper inputs on the 2-player, 6-buttons each panel. Technically, again, so long as certain combinations don't happen at the same time, there won't be an issue, but the moment both players move their joysticks to diagonal position, and each hits a non-modifier button, or one player hits two, any further activations of the non-modifier defined inputs will be ignored until one or more of those are released.
While it sounds esoteric, it does happen in fighting games, even with the above "optimal" configuration. The real issue is that the controller is configurable, and when the user who thinks these limitations don't exist does not configure the panel optimally, the situation becomes much worse.
I'd never go so far as to say the product is untested or a cheap encoder. It's maybe spread a little thin to support an ambitions list of features.
That isn't just limited to the controller being discussed. I can point to several examples in the past where claims like this were made, and the controller didn't deliver on those claims. Some were eventually fixed, after hapless customers were left holding a poor product, while others just went away, after vehemently defending the claims which simply were not true. This indicates a lack of proper testing, or perhaps simple ignorance as to what these claims actually mean, and the ramifications they have for the user. In this case, it appears that the company knows those claims are not factual, yet this is not reflected in the marketing material. IMHO, this is worse. If they have taken steps to remedy the situation, and it
is factual for current products, then that's fine, but it would probably be a good idea for folks to make sure for themselves at this point.
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Topic: X-Arcade Tankstick limited button presses (6 button limitation) (Read 19865 times)
