Hall effects sticks are a little more expensive but it’s a relatively small difference in cost and is negligible at scale for these large companies to manufacture. Citing the slightly higher cost as the reason for not using the vastly superior tech is just an excuse, and obviously so when you consider for example Sony putting in all the expensive haptic-feedback stuff in their controllers but still insisting on using the old physical-contact potentiometers which inevitably wear out. It really is about a form of planned obsolescence, with the sticks being intended to eventually break, necessitating the replacement of the controller (or repair if still under warranty, but for most people it’s easier just to buy a new controller, which Nintendo, Sony, etc are counting on).
After getting stick drift on my 2-month old PS5 controller and doing a bunch of research on what the options and alternatives are, I am completely convinced that console controllers are a blatant scam. Not only has Sony refused to use the obviously superior Hall effect sticks in their supposedly super-high-tech cutting edge haptic feedback PS5 controllers and made it so that you can’t get any 3rd party (that aren’t Sony-licensed) controllers that are stickdrift-proof, they have made the PS5 controllers much more likely to develop stick drift than the PS4 controllers were. So people have an extremely high chance of needing to frequently buy new controllers at $70+ a pop. They haven’t been able to force you to pay a subscription fee to use your controllers (yet) but they’ve effectively done that by making it so people keep having to buy new ones. There have been numerous class action lawsuits filed against Sony that make these exact claims, but unsurprisingly those lawsuits always fail.
Sony even makes a high-end “pro” model controller that costs $200 where the sticks are on modules that can be removed and swapped out from the rest of the controller, but even at that ridiculous price point for a controller, the sticks including all replacement modules, are all still potentiometer sticks. You simply can’t get Hall effect sticks even for the $200 “Edge” controller. So if you’re upset about buying new $70 controllers every year, you can get the $200 controller that will still develop stick drift, but you’ll only have to buy $30 stick modules to replace the old ones as they wear out. Oh, except the replacement sticks are made to be artificially scarce and people are on long wait lists to even get the replacement modules. Great options, no?
Hall effects sticks are a little more expensive but it’s a relatively small difference in cost and is negligible at scale for these large companies to manufacture. Citing the slightly higher cost as the reason for not using the vastly superior tech is just an excuse, and obviously so when you consider for example Sony putting in all the expensive haptic-feedback stuff in their controllers but still insisting on using the old physical-contact potentiometers which inevitably wear out. It really is about a form of planned obsolescence, with the sticks being intended to eventually break, necessitating the replacement of the controller (or repair if still under warranty, but for most people it’s easier just to buy a new controller, which Nintendo, Sony, etc are counting on).
After getting stick drift on my 2-month old PS5 controller and doing a bunch of research on what the options and alternatives are, I am completely convinced that console controllers are a blatant scam. Not only has Sony refused to use the obviously superior Hall effect sticks in their supposedly super-high-tech cutting edge haptic feedback PS5 controllers and made it so that you can’t get any 3rd party (that aren’t Sony-licensed) controllers that are stickdrift-proof, they have made the PS5 controllers much more likely to develop stick drift than the PS4 controllers were. So people have an extremely high chance of needing to frequently buy new controllers at $70+ a pop. They haven’t been able to force you to pay a subscription fee to use your controllers (yet) but they’ve effectively done that by making it so people keep having to buy new ones. There have been numerous class action lawsuits filed against Sony that make these exact claims, but unsurprisingly those lawsuits always fail.
Sony even makes a high-end “pro” model controller that costs $200 where the sticks are on modules that can be removed and swapped out from the rest of the controller, but even at that ridiculous price point for a controller, the sticks including all replacement modules, are all still potentiometer sticks. You simply can’t get Hall effect sticks even for the $200 “Edge” controller. So if you’re upset about buying new $70 controllers every year, you can get the $200 controller that will still develop stick drift, but you’ll only have to buy $30 stick modules to replace the old ones as they wear out. Oh, except the replacement sticks are made to be artificially scarce and people are on long wait lists to even get the replacement modules. Great options, no?