I am considering upgrading to a newer controller. My demands are meager, its just a little project to have fun with moonlight streaming. I’m more concerned with the ergonomics and bluetooth stability than anything.

I go to best buy. I put a sony dualsense controller in my hand. mostly feels right, but I can’t get it off the display to feel how my wrists bend with it in a natural position. Instead of a tether, it’s bolted to the fucking table. so I can see what it looks like but not hold it as it’s intended to be used.

Fine, they don’t have the red one I like anyway. Let’s look at the 8bitdo ultimate 2 and pro3 controllers…nope, not in stock. There’s a gamesir super nova that will supposedly do what I want but its in a sealed box so I cannot handle it to feel the ergonomics of it, so I have no idea if I’ll actually like it. It’s an ugly color scheme anyway, I’ll just look elsewhere.

I hit up the exchange. They have a used red dualsense controller, employee takes it out of the case, it’s in good shape though I have no idea if this will be cursed with stick drift that I hear these tend to have. Feels nice in my hand, but its only $5 less than a brand new one that won’t have that same risk. And the new ones aren’t in red. I’ll keep looking.

Found a steam controller, played with that. I can see that being great for steam games, but button-based retro console stuff? not so much. There’s a scuff controller that’s really nice. Oh it feels excellent in the hand. has more options than I would ever need. visually pleasing white and grey. But its not bluetooth compatible so it won’t pair to my appletv for moonlight streaming. I could rig up another way to relay commands to the linux box in the basement maybe but, wait, it’s windows only and needs corsair’s software to actually use it? Wait, corsair makes this? pass.

I go to gamestop for the first time in about a decade. I see the cards for controllers that say to bring them to an associate to purchase the actual controller. But I can’t because it’s locked behind that magnet bar thing. So I need to get the employee to unlock the cardboard card to bring to that same employee to get the product I actually want. Whatever, I go to the employee working this shift and see he has a nice looking black super nova controller behind him. I ask if he has one opened or preowned already I could feel and see if I like. no. I ask if we can open the box and see the product. no. I ask if I can buy it, open it in store, and return it if I dont like it. only if it is defective, so no. fuck it, I’ll take that the red dualsense controller.

He goes to the wall with the controller card and says having the card up doesn’t mean they have that actual controller in stock (there are several of this color up and empty spots where other colors were hanging but okay) and after checking, no they don’t have it.

So I can’t actually hold a handheld device to see if I want it, if I can even find it, and if it’s there, I have to just guess based on marketing art how my wrists will appreciate it.

So I went home without buying anything and will just manually fix the mapping of my DS4 controller, which for some reason is fine everywhere but where sunshine passes it to steam. Because that is free, it has support, and people will help me with shit I can’t figure out on my own. AND I CAN TOUCH THE THING.