Ranking Every Playstation Controller

the PlayStation controller has kept its iconic look for over 20 years but there's also a bunch of wonky ones that we've all forgotten about so I'll be taking a look at them all and seeing which ones that age the best and are the most practical so with that let's get her ranked 23. Singh star microphone this mic was published by Sony so yeah I'm gonna count it and uh maybe I just have an old unbroken mic but this thing is a piece of junk I tried it with rock band and it should have worked perfectly fine but nope I had to scream into the mic just for it to pick up my voice at all I remember this being a problem with other rock band mics as a teenager as well but the fact that it barely responds it all kind of sucks and to further add to the pile it is just a microphone so it's only gonna work with singing games plus it's not Advanced enough to recognize what you're saying the only thing this mic responds to is how loud and how soft your voice is so if you wanted you could just yell the whole time and get the same results it's just a basic ass mic you're not gonna get much out of this 22 PSX remote yep I'm even including remotes because they're technically controllers you can control things with them eh there's something really cool about seeing the classic PlayStation buttons on the remote itself but it is quite literally just a remote I like this little nub in the middle it's kind of fun to mess with but really you're getting what you'd expect from this you control DVDs yippee 21 PS2 DVD remote control now that's what you call a thick remote and you might think that I'm grasping as straws here trying to find things to talk about but seriously go look at the rest of the remotes in your house and tell me this isn't the widest one you've ever seen the PS2 remote also has the PlayStation buttons and functions the same as the PSX one the only reason I'm making it higher is because the PS2 runs on American DVDs while the PSX doesn't so these two controllers could be interchanged depending on where you're from 20. PS3 remote control once again it's another remote which works the same as all the other ones its shape is moderately more comfortable to hold and it has a bit more features one of those being the ability to switch from 2D and 3D modes on your TV and it was also compatible with services like Netflix plus it's got colored buttons red blue yellow green but what the hell do they do well even after checking the manual I I still have no idea the manual says and I quote perform functions assigned to each button wow well that was useful thanks Sony no but apparently these buttons do different things depending on what you're watching weird 19. PS5 media remote how did Sony manage to make this remote look so appealing some people may not like the small form factor but I honestly think it's fantastic and fits really nicely in the hand my only real gripe with it is the lack of rubber on the bottom making it really easy to slip around but the buttons here are simplified and easy to understand and I really love the big streaming service ones like Disney plus Netflix Spotify and YouTube it's gonna be hilarious if in 20 years any of these services are gone and they're ingrained in the remote for forever this is just a really solid remote it's one of the prettiest ones I own as if that means anything to anybody here maybe it does anyone else collect remotes like I do anyone 18. Buzz buzzers Yep this is also an official Sony controller since the game it was made for was published by Sony I won't say much about the game but if you're curious it's basically just this quiz thing where the host is a massive jackass but as for the controllers themselves well it's about as simple as it gets a big red button and some colored rectangles underneath its uniform in nature meaning that if you're right or left-handed you can use this pretty easily and the buttons have a nice clickiness to them the size feels nice and it grips well in your hand the red button even lights up and blinks so it's one of the few controllers that's ready to party there's also a wireless version of this controller but I only have the wired ones on hand while the buzz buzzer controllers are pretty solid overall they are compatible with like 99.9 of games and really only serve a purpose for this goofy quiz game 17. PlayStation I the majority of people consider this as a part of the PlayStation Move which we'll get to later on but as for the camera itself there's a tiny handful of games exclusively for the PlayStation Eye and it's basically the same experience as the I toy but the camera is better and I guess it's more responsive there's two different modes for this camera the modes you can switch from are this red side and this blue side so what's the difference exactly well funny enough this mechanic functions the same as a normal camera would when twisting the lens the field of view gets switched so the red side has a smaller view while the blue is bigger PlayStation I comes with I create which was a video editing software right on your PS3 so while that's neat and all I don't see why anybody would bother using this camera in the current age and I really don't like that you can't move the camera around on the stand it's forced to point at the ground which is so stupid for the time it was novel but like with the eye toy it serves virtually no purpose today 16. I toy or in other words the original connect the itoy came out in 2003 so as you'd expect the camera quality is absolutely atrocious but that doesn't really matter because it still works in fact it works pretty well now I've got itoy play one and two so I tried those games out it was pleasantly surprised with how responsive the itoy is there were a lot of games I tried that were fun but after a while it all kind of feels like the same thing just wave your arms around and hit the enemies on screen that's pretty much what most of the games get boiled down to and that can be very exhausting after a while it is kind of cool how you're on the screen at all times but you can only do so much with the itoy while it's a mostly worthless novelty it's also a Charming one 15. PS1 d-pad the most classic OG PlayStation controller it honestly has not held up as well as Nintendo's Classics the design is Iconic and is still fairly comfortable to hold but the bun quality is fairly mixed while the face buttons feel alright the d-pad has never felt that great and I think the issue is that each Direction button feels disconnected the NES and SNES d-pads work so well because they're all one giant button and it's easy to swing your finger around the entire thing but on this controller it's more challenging to do and it also doesn't help that there's a ton of 3D games on the PS1 a d-pad is not going to make those fun to play no matter which way you swing it which is why they updated the controller later on but even to this day they've stuck with this type of d-pad which I honestly don't understand I mean I guess it stands out amongst everyone else but it just feels inferior 14. PlayStation classic d-pad it might seem redundant to count these as two different controllers but there are a few notable differences that make it slightly better the biggest one being the star and select bones they're a lot less mushy to press down on they also have a slightly smaller form factor in the end is a USB which is more convenient in today's age it's still bizarre to me that the PlayStation Asian classic chose to go with this version of the controller considering it's objectively worse than the newer version with analog joysticks but I digress 13 PS1 analog flight joysticks look at this absolute hog of a controller this thing is twice the size of the PlayStation itself and shockingly it's held up well the flight sticks were a bit of a concern when I first saw it but they're actually incredibly responsive now I should note that I don't have any flight games to try this with so I just threw up Spyro as a test and I was actually having a lot of fun moving around with these sticks the range of motion is huge and it has actual sensitivity you can move precisely or thrust forward at full power it accurately reads all of your movements there is also a conglomerate amount of buttons on this thing and while it may look like a cluster they're all mapped in a way that makes sense you've got buttons on the front of the stick a tiny joystick nub on the right multiple on the back and a bunch on the board itself the buttons on the board have a nice clicky feel heck you can even turn off the analog if you really want to the start and select buttons are still pretty squishy which again I'm not a fan of but I guess design Choice Sony wanted to stick with what I find fascinating is that for some games the controller accommodates right and left-handed players if you want to move around a game with your right thumb you can use the joystick and then the big buttons with your left hand the only drawback is that it's not going to be as precise as a normal controller but if you want to play a flight game then this is the real deal well I'd imagine it is but again I couldn't try a flight game I am really impressed with how well this controller is stood the test of time 12. PS1 dual shock we finally got into the first controller that's likely the most familiar to you it's the same as the older version but with these nice comfortable joysticks now you can properly control your 3D games wow and better you can click the joysticks in which was an idea that was pretty ahead of its time the materials and size they used are really nice too they're firm and have a slight amount of texturing so your thumb won't slip it's funny going back and seeing the n64's joystick compared to this like my God what a glow up this is it still looks and feels premium even 19 years later 11. PS1 dual analog here's a controller that you might but also might not be familiar with if you look closely at the joysticks you'll notice it's got a slightly different shape in case you don't know the difference between concave and convex thumbsticks this one has a concave shape that simply means that the middle of the joystick dips down into a bowl-like shape creating a natural spot for your thumb to rest in is this better than the convex design most people use today eh it's really up to preference I'm personally indifferent to what feels better honestly the real reason I like this controller more is the longer handles side by side it's only a couple inches longer but it fits in your hands so much nicer but again your hand size is the ultimate Factor here but for me this feels a lot better to hold 10. dual shock 2. most people take one look at this thing and don't notice any differences to the first dual shock the ps2's DualShock 2 is virtually identical externally all I can really point out is that there's a lot more color options to pick from I mean just look at my translucent red one it still looks really nice to this day internally speaking it's a little bit lighter which I guess is a nice bonus but the first controller wasn't necessarily heavy to begin with the main difference is the pressure sensitive buttons these can be used to better control acceleration in a racing game as an example I think it's a super interesting idea to have this as an option but the buttons themselves have barely any range to begin with that makes it hard to really feel the difference in the games that support this feature especially since you get no feedback on the amount of pressure you're actually applying which in turn make your thumb sore if you're pressing hard for long periods of time it's really interesting that this exists on such old Tech and it's even in the Dualshock 3 but it isn't really utilized in PS3 games 9. PlayStation Move Motion slash navigation man oh man am I conflicted on this controller on one hand it's clearly a Wii remote knock off that adds a colorful orb at the top to stand out but on the other hand I had a decent time using these the controller itself is pretty comfortable to hold the buttons feel good to press and the trigger on the back is nice and soft everything is reachable aside from start and select but that's probably for the best since you'll really need to hit those anyway the shape of the move controllers are much more smooth than the rigid WeMo which is kind of nice and they also come with straps but of course I'll point out the Oddball in the room this orb looks really goofy but when it starts lighting up different colors it really brings the controller to life even when they're used with the first VR headset the move controllers work fairly well but for now we're just gonna talk about the controller itself the way it works is you have to calibrate it with a PlayStation Eye so it's kind of like the Wii sensor bar but much more obnoxious because you have to manually calibrate the positioning yourself the tracking uses Bluetooth and the positioning is retained from the light of the orbs which means that for the best experience you have to play in the dark or in a dimly lit room I tried playing iPad and Kill Zone 3 with these controllers and it works fine ipet was a uh well it was a video game for like 10 minutes all I gotta say about that and then Kill Zone 3 was fun until the motion controls became unbearable due to it being clunkier than just using a joystick I think the biggest issue with a motion controller is the fact that there's no joystick or even a d-pad in the camera we have to use it with sucks why not use a newer camera or better yet an infrared sensor bar like Nintendo did but yeah there's the navigation controller which is like the motion one but with a joystick and no squishy orb I guess it's handy that you don't have to plug this into the motion controller unlike the nunchuck with the WeMo so while the motion tracking works pretty well let's just be real you might as well just use a dual shock 3. most of the games revolving around PlayStation Move are gimmicky and boring but the tech is confident in at the very least 8. PlayStation VR aim okay you can't tell me that this isn't a cue ball rack or the Wii zapper with a DOT on the end design wise it's one of those things where you kind of just laugh at it as for its functionality though I didn't really know what to expect but then I tried a couple of shooting games out farpoint and firewall zero hour and I have to admit I was impressed with how accurate it ended up being the trigger buttons feel great and the buttons on the controller are very easy to reach normally I'd hate the idea of this many buttons on a toy gun but the way they've been placed just makes a lot of sense the Dual joysticks are where your thumbs are already gonna be the trigger buttons feel great to push and everything else is easily reachable there are a couple of buttons on the side that take some effort to push but you'll never need them when playing the games themselves the main issue comes down to a lack of killer absent VR but this is still very early text so they'll come over time 7. PlayStation VR okay so technically the VR headset itself isn't a controller but it's used in conjunction with the PlayStation move controllers and I don't know when the heck I'll ever talk about this again with the psvr 2 out but yeah if you've been following me for a while you may know that I spent 24 hours in the HTC Vive headset playing Mario 64. beyond that I've played beat saber and Tetris in VR and that's about it like I said earlier still waiting for more killer apps to make VR worth investing my time into but since doing that stupid Mario 64 video there has been some good stuff that's come out like Half-Life Alex as an example but I still feel like there's a couple of big problems with VR that need to be addressed onto the psvr itself you use the PS3's goofy motion controls and the PS4 camera to connect everything together setting up is pretty easy and the games that I tried out worked pretty confidently there are a lot of cables and you need to get this extra box to get it running but they make the process very simple and the only cord you'll have nearby is one attached to a headset the headset itself is pretty comfortable but it's not perfect if you look down you'll see your feet instead of just darkness and the games get pretty blurry if you don't have it positioned correctly it's nice to have these buttons attached to the cord for volume and it has a spot to plug in headphones so you can get really immersed the resolution isn't super high either but it's high enough to where you still feel like you're really there so I tried a few games out but the only one I got really into was super hot VR I'm sure a lot of you already know what this is but in case you don't it's a shooter stealth game where time moves when you move so you have to survive and defeat the polygon dudes while avoiding their bullets and attacks because you move your entire body and the game moves at your pace it feels incredible and very natural to play but there's also moments where the motion controllers stop tracking and get thrown off but for the most part I really felt like I was in the world and it was amazing however the other VR games didn't work as well I'll just bring up farpoint as an example you move around with a joystick and then physically aim at the aliens we're shooting at it looks great and is incredibly immersive but because my body isn't physically moving with the game my brain gets very confused and after like 30 minutes I gotta take a break that's an issue with most VR games and look I play a lot of games and even I was getting nauseous I'm not sure how this problem is going to be solved but VR Hardware slash software devs have got to figure this out or it's never going to take off mainstream the headset itself looks pretty Sleek but let's be honest you look like a dork wearing this thing the design of the headset has got to be reduced in size drastically to look like a pair of glasses before more people will be willing to try it but even with all that said super hot really made me see a bright future for this technology it's only going to get better from here normal controllers are still way better but VR is very fun in small doses 6. PlayStation VR2 the amount of improvements in Sony's newest VR headset is kind of insane the first thing to mention is just how simple and easy it is to set up you see this USBC chord you plug that into your PS5 and you're basically done no more obnoxious box with five different cables it all somehow Works through just one cable you also don't need a camera anymore for tracking the headset scans your playroom and it remembers unless you move out of the room but now let's move on to the VR dual sense controllers they kind of look like freak controllers of the future but this is 2023 so we're basically at that point now they're honestly quite comfortable to hold and all the buttons and joysticks feel great in the hands you've also got wrist straps to accompany these the only drawback might be that people with large hands wouldn't like the smaller buttons and joystick the screen of the VR has a much wider field of view it's an OLED in 4k plus looking down no longer shows your feet simply putting this headset on is easier than the first one too you push this button on the top to slide your head in and then twist the back to Titan you've also got a camera that you could turn on at any time see if you need to look around the room you're in or take a break from playing you can do that without taking the headset off but what about the psvr games well unfortunately the ones on PS4 aren't compatible with this headset I completely understand why that's so considering how much more advanced the headset and controllers are but it's still a bummer and I hope that the psvr devs upgrade their games to work on PS5 so for now we can only play psvr 2 games and there's a few that I picked up of course I got Tetris because I'm obsessed but I also grabbed Thumper Resident Evil 8 and Horizon called the mountain Horizon does a good job showcasing the power of the headset and while it was really immersive and didn't have any issues with accurately displaying the controllers my problem still comes down to the type of game it is when you're moving from place to place but standing still in reality your brain just isn't gonna like that I know that some people don't get dizzy from these kinds of VR games but I'm still not used to it and I honestly don't know if I ever will be Resident Evil 8 was again an incredibly cool showcase but the exact same issue applies here too I had a good time with Thumper at least since the VR effects were mostly in the background and I remain stationed but yeah I'm incredibly impressed with how much this second headset improves over the first one five six axis Sony's first wireless controller the convenience of getting rid of the wire automatically makes it better than its wired counterparts the design itself Remains the Same but there are some notable changes instead of the analog button it's replaced with the PlayStation logo which brings up the PS3 menu at any time they are to an L2 buttons also have way more range and can be squeezed down these feel amazing and are much better than what the PS1 and 2 controllers have the curvature lip is also much less defined which I feel like makes a huge difference on the PS1 and 2 this slip forces your fingers to awkwardly rest on the shoulder buttons while on the PS3 they rest more naturally between R1 and R2 also a fun fact this controller can be paired with a PSP Go for the 2000s that's a neat feature the reason this is called the six axis controller is because it has motion sensing technology where you can tilt the controller to do specific things in a game this is nothing new nowadays the Wii was all about this and this is just Sony's version of that what's strange though is is the lack of vibration this controller just doesn't have that at all some people probably don't care but I feel like it adds to the game so it's weird to not have it included the analog joysticks are also more precise than the DualShock 2s and it uses analog and digital signals simultaneously so it once again improves on its previous iteration and it only gets better from here 4. Dualshock 3 as you'd expect this is strikingly similar to the six axis controller but it has Rumble and haptic feedback included so it's got all the great stuff from each previous DualShock all wrapped into one there is really not much else to add beyond that the six axis is pretty obsolete when the Dualshock 3 exists 3. DualShock 4. holy hell this is one heck of a glow up the amount of upgrades this controller got while still maintaining the iconic shape is pretty crazy to start the biggest difference is of course the massive touch bar button at first I didn't really care much for it and kind of missed having start and select but now that I've used this in the Dual sensor bunch I think the change made a lot of sense that's because it can be used as multiple buttons and it's even a touch screen if you really want to use that the L2 and R2 buttons are even better now they're a tiny bit narrower and have this subtle lip at the end these two changes make pushing the shoulder buttons feel great and removes any slipperiness the joysticks however do something that I haven't really seen the edges cave inside while the middle retains the classic convex shape it's a super interesting idea which basically gives you the best of both concave and convex shapes then we've got the light bar this flashes different colors depending on what's going on in your game the light bar adds personality to the DualShock 4. it looks pretty sweet when it's lit up and there's even a bunch of basic stuff that was included like a headphone jack speakers and proper motion sensors even the handles are longer again like with the ps1's Dual analog with the size of my hands it's much more comfortable to grasp the start and select buttons have been replaced with the sharing option buttons too which I think makes sense in today's Age We post random stuff on social media all the time so there might as well be a dedicated button to make that easier to do 2. dual sense if there's one reason to buy a PlayStation 5 it's for the controller I know that sounds crazy but seriously Sony absolutely knocked it out of the park this generation it builds off the dual shock 4 it manages to improve on almost everything it has a much more weighty feel than the DualShock 4. the build quality just feels more premium the light bar is now behind the Touch button on the edges so you still get the features in a more subtle way the buttons feel very solid and concrete and they kept all the good stuff like the creative joystick shape headphone jack and speaker the two biggest conclusions are the haptic feedback and adaptive triggers instead of a typical Rumble motor there's dual actuators which create vibrations that feel much more realistic to what's happening on screen but the biggest feature is of course how the L2 and R2 buttons function they have different levels of force feedback and tension depending on what part of the game you're playing so if you're playing something like The Last of Us you'll feel different levels of tension whether you're shooting a a pistol or a bow and arrow it's one of those things where you have to physically feel how it works to get a full grasp on how amazing it is and to top it off it uses USBC to charge not that that's surprising or anything I'm just glad that Sony's kept up with the times because it's by far the easiest charger we've ever had to use and my God I love how this thing looks too it's style somehow is inspired by the 90s aesthetic but also manages to look modern I really love how over the top the PS5 console and controller look they're gonna stick out years down the line compared to the other consoles this generation 1. dual sense Edge before going into why this is the best PlayStation controller yet I'm very aware that this thing costs 200 which is absurdly expensive but my God Sony really went all out here and made this feel like a 200 controller it comes with a hard case that looks and feels great plus you can open up the bag to charge your controller without taking it out it's a bit heavier than the regular dual sense but there's a lot more going on inside to make it work firstly there's a couple the back buttons of different links that you can attach to the back they're pretty easy to set up although honestly having four shoulder buttons already feels like enough but I'm sure some people would find a good use for these the touch bar also looks a lot nicer the way they stylize the controller gives it an almost mature look in the Adaptive triggers can be adjusted even more if you don't want to push down as much to get the full press in you'll just move this switch to do so and if you miss those classic convex caps those are very easy to swap out in fact you can change the entire joystick if something goes wrong since the plastic plate can come off there's also two new function buttons which allow you to remap your buttons and save profiles while this is nice to have it's kind of dumb that you can't do this with a normal dual sense but personally I don't really care much for this future to begin with even the USB cable is braided and very high quality you can attach it to your controller and have it lock in place if you want to play it wired the only real complaint I've heard people talk about is the battery life it's around four to five hours which isn't super long but realistically the only people getting this control are professionals playing a game competitively and they'll have their controllers wired up for that anyway another nice detail that I really appreciate is the slip resistant inner grips you feel a very light amount of resistance on the inside and it actually makes a bit of a difference when playing with all that said you probably don't need to own this controller because of the cost but it still tops the original Dual sense due to all the extra stuff we're given it was really cool going back and trying out all of Sony's experimental technology in a lot of ways they kind kind of remind me of the wacky stuff that Nintendo has attempted after all these decades but with that thanks for watching and I'll see you soon foreign [Music]

Channel: Nathaniel Bandy

Views: 665,286

Keywords: Playstation 5, PS5, PlayStation VR 2, PlayStation 2, DualSense, Playstation Controller, Playstation Consoles, Ranking every Playstation Controller, PS3, Playstation 4, PS4 Pro, DualShock, DualSense Edge, PSVR 2, Playstation Move, nathaniel bandy

Id: KlYDki7Tkio

Length: 25min 48sec (1548 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 11 2023