Do you think rear buttons should have been made standard in this new generation?

Do you think rear buttons/paddles should have been made standard in this new generation?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

There are obviously a few decisions that need to be made:

  • buttons or paddles?
  • should they represent new buttons or act as a mirror of the face buttons?
  • can they be designed so they accommodate all sorts of hand sizes?

I was personally disappointed when the new controllers were revealed without rear buttons, as I expected them in the Dual Sense after Sony released a rear button add-on. They seem like a cost-effective innovation. And if one console had the feature, and would have been a big exclusive feature over the other.

I’m sure the Dual Sense and Series controllers will evolving the coming years, and much has been said about Spencer referencing the DS’s innovation, but I’m hoping this is something they consider if they do create a v2 of the controller.

But maybe I’m in the minority so I was wondering what everyone else thought.

yesss

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Nah, rarely use them in most games (XB)

I love using them on my Elite but I think it’s fine that they’re not a standard feature.

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I would say yes, except I love my Elite 2 so much, for all the things it offers, not just the paddles. So I would never change from it, until an Elite 3 comes out

As much as I like them on the steam controller and it would be a good thing to have for me, I wonder if the platform holders like Sony and MS haven’t gone with these because in doing so you are essentially adding on complexity and opening up games to only support pads with the back buttons in mind.

Basically, increasing your button count from 14 or whatever it is now to 16-20.

This could be unwanted because of core audience complexity, accessibility concerns, whatever.

So while I would use a controller with back buttons, I can see why Sony/MS/Nintendo don’t want to standardize it.

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I had an Elite Controller (before I smashed it thanks to Dark Souls) and I just found the back buttons annoying so I never used them.

They are removable, on the elite. And even the Sony ones are an add on thingy. So I can see having them on all controllers going forward, even though they’re not for everyone. As they can just be taken off, or ignored

Plus they are most useful for FPS’, especially multiplayer ones…I.E…Less suitable for most ‘wheh, I only wanna play 3rd person single player games’ XboxEra forum posters

Mansplaining Fuck You GIF by Women's History

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I agree and I think that anyone implementing them other than as a mirrored set of buttons (meaning that they register as A, B, X, and Y and not as any new button, so you have two ways of pressing the B button the one on the front or the one on the back) Would be making a mistake. Games would get a lot more complicated.

2 Likes

I’ve been using 4 paddles elite since V1. But no, they are genuinely hard to adapt too and drive price up, keep it as a premium add on.

I would want them just so I can get rid of the thumbstick click to run. Not buying an Elite just for that.

Nope. There’s more than enough buttons. Developers tend to just over-complicate their controller configuration scheme as it is so adding more buttons would makes things even worse and even the games that allow you to customize the controller configuration (looking at you AC Valhalla and to a lesser extent, Immortals Fenyx Rising) tends to have buttons that conflict with others because they don’t separate each actual section and instead keep them all connected.

I would personally love paddles as a standard. I find them incredibly useful when playing shooters (which I play the most). With my Elite 2 I have buttons mapped for jump, reload, sprint and crouch and I find it very effective. I don’t generally use them with other genres though.

I don’t see much use for them outside of the shooter / multiplayer space so I don’t know that it’d be worth it for the increased manufacturing costs and higher controller prices.

I appreciate the detailed responses, as they say far more than a simple yes/no.

I’m curious, would your opinion change if the rear buttons simply mirrored the face buttons? Ie. They are A, B, X, and Y but on the back, and so they can’t be used for any new functionality but are a more convenient way of pressing the face buttons If you don’t want to take your thumbs off the thumbsticks.

Honestly, no because I think there would just be more issues instead of less because with more buttons, they will want to add more commands or whatever the case may be to every button and once they past the set amount, they will all conflict with one another.

I can’t even play AC Valhalla the way I did Origins/Odyssey because there’s too many commands and whatnot all attached to the same buttons and even if there were more buttons, I believe they would add more commands causing the same issues.

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I agree there are more than enough buttons but I’d still want the bottom ones to be fully customizable to their function. This way it doesn’t make it any more complex for game developers but allows for user preferences and accessibility.

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I think SCUF patent that back button and paddle that why you don’t see them on standard controller since MS or Sony would have to pay Scuff to have the back paddle on the controller.

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I think the time it takes to get used to them pushes a lot of people away, but I can not go back to taking my thumbs off the analog sticks now that I’m used to using 4 back buttons. It’s the only controller feature I care about.

Hugo Martin agrees too; on his Doom Eternal streams he talks about how they’re needed to play best on consoles.

Outside of shooters which i don’t play a lot. Theyre not needed.

Absolutely. But someone owns the patent so they cant do it.

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