Game controllers 101: Decoding the language
Amy Flower
STACK Senior Editor
When controller shopping, you’ll come across all sorts of words that may not necessarily mean much to you. Here are the big ones, to help you decide what features are most important to you.
Analogue: An analogue control allows for a variable range of input – a trigger used as an accelerator in a racing game, for example. The majority of thumbsticks nowadays are also analogue, unlike on old school game controllers from the 8 and 16--bit consoles.
Asymmetric controller: The left thumbstick is placed higher than the right one – like the standard Xbox controller – rather than being at the same level, like standard PlayStation controllers.
Dead zone: The range of a button press that doesn’t register a response. This allows for everything from games that require hair trigger activation, to others that demand more deliberate presses.
Digital: In relation to controller buttons, if it’s digital it’s either on, or it’s off. For example, most D-pads are digital.
Hall Effect: In game controllers, rather than using traditional internals with touching parts that can degrade over time, Hall Effect sensors involve no contact between parts. This means lastability, and that they avoid “stick drift”, whereby wear can make your control stick unreliable.
It's named after American physicist Edwin Hall, who discovered back in 1879 how electricity and magnetism could work hand-in-hand to move objects, with their position and distance able to be accurately measured.
Haptic feedback: Also known as rumble, dating back to the Nintendo 64 console, haptic feedback allows parts of your controller to offer feelable feedback in games. The kick of a trigger when firing in a shooter, or rumbling when hitting the dirt in a racing game, are two examples.
Low latency: Latency is delay, so low latency means that there’s minimal time (in fractions of a second) between a player making a controller input, and the gaming system registering it.
Polling rate: A measurement, in Hertz (Hz), that refers to how frequently the controller sends the data that you input to the gaming device that it’s connected to. The higher the number, the better.
Trigger locks/blocks: In some games, in particular shooters, you want a short throw on your trigger buttons so that shots register more quickly. Trigger locks reduce the travel distance of these buttons.
^Discounts apply to previous ticketed/advertised price prior to the discount offer. As we negotiate, products will likely have been sold below ticketed/advertised price prior to the discount offer. Prices may differ at airport stores.
