Is the 360 d-pad broken or is it just the three I own? I love the over all design of the 360 controller but lately its failing me. If I press right on the d-pad, I’m just as likely to also have up or down registered as well. I first noticed it with Street Fighter II. Then I thought it might just be the game. Then I got Tomb Raider Legends, when I go to use binoculars, I often use a health pack as well. Now with Dead Rising, when Ottis calls, I more often than not drop the active inventory and not answer his call. This is really pissing me off. All three of my wireless 360 controller behave the same way. Is this common? If so would getting a third party controller solve this?
I wouldn’t call my d-pad grossly inaccurate like that, but it does fail to register presses often enough to be annoying. Trying to get the diagonals in Gauntlet is particularly bad.
The dpad on the 360 is garbage.
Worst part of the entire system. If legal knockoff NES consoles can have the crosspad, so could the 360. this fakey dpad disc shit has gotta go.
It sucks at diagonals. Well, the upper right to lower left one.
Yeah, mine does the same thing. It’s annoying when hunting and pecking to type a message in XBL.
Jeebus, is that d-pad awful!
I used to be mildly annoyed by that yellow joystick on the Gamecube controller, but that thing was ergonomic bliss compared to the 360’s d-pad. That thing practically sells headsets what with how hard it is to compose text messages on Xbox Live.
-Tom
Yeah, the d-pads on BOTH Xbox consoles are junk. I think Microsoft’s engineers look at it as something you use to toggle stuff in a first-person shooter and can’t fathom anyone using it to actually play a game. I can hear the guys there now… “d-pads? WTF?! Those are old. We make the future here and the future is all analog sticks!”
To take it back a few months - and for those who played Oblivion on the 360 - you could really tell how imprecise the d-pad was when playing that game.
You had to use the d-pad regularly to access the quick-access wheel. And you could certainly tell that it was off-measure then.
There have been exactly four controllers in the history of gaming with quality d-pads. The Nintendo, the Gameboy (lumping them all together with the GBA), the Super Nintendo, and the Sony controller (I’m lumping them all together cause they all had functionally the same shape and d-pad).
Which is funny, because nintendo has put crap d-pads on all their consoles since the SNES, and the DS has a crappy d-pad as well. Albeit better than the ones on the dreamcast/xbox/xbox 360.
I don’t understand what’s so difficult. Or why a company like nintendo would suddenly have bad dpads.
I have the same problem.
Agreed. The Sony d-pad is the best.
The Japanese/revised US Sega Saturn controller towers above all others in terms of d-pad quality. I can’t stand the Playstation d-pads.
The Sony d-pad is crap. It should be four separate little buttons that you have to press together to get a diagonal, but instead it’s the same d-pad design only part of it is inside the controller shell where you can’t reach it. And the diagonals suck because of it.
Um, it is…
Edit - I understand what you meant, now. However it’s architected inside the controller, it works a hell of a lot better than the 360 version.
What in the fuck are you talking about? The DS (fat) dpad is excellent - I would say best ever - and the PS dpad is balls. I love the clickiness of the DS one. Worst ever is Master System followed by Gamecube - total shit.
No, it really isn’t four buttons. It’s one piece of molded plastic that tilts in different directions.
I think they need to be broken in. When I first got my 360, I had all of the issues described above. After using it for a few months, it seems to have loosened up and I can play THAW decently, where it was utter frustration in month one.
I’ve been using mine since Janurary and it hasn’t broken in yet… :(
The best d-pad ever is the one on the original (sold separately in stores) Genesis 6-button controller. Even the Japanese Saturn ones couldn’t match it, but they’re as close as you’ll ever get.
The one on the Saturn Analog controller is very nice too.
The PlayStation d-pad is awful, but at least serviceable. It functions. That’s more than you can say for the ones on the Xbox controllers. They totally blow.