Gadgetory

today we have got something very special to talk about I am a huge fan of anything that involves mixing retro and new tech together and this is a very good also a little weird example of that and then as we now finally have the new do this is a Xbox one and PC compatible controller that is made by hyper kin in association with Xbox as a recreation of the original giant Duke controller now if you don't know what that is when the original Xbox came out this was the first controller design it had which was just this gigantic thing the Xbox is everything the rock is cutting-edge powerful exhilarating and like the rock had very mixed response some people loved it and others not so much because they couldn't really well reach all of the buttons and as a reissue this guy's got a couple things going on a little different obviously I mean for a fact it works for Xbox one and not the original system they've actually added these little tiny shoulder nubs up here which are a little awkward and they actually do the same thing as the black and white buttons so that acts as sort of a stand-in for modern games which have the dual shoulder setup you can do that now along with that this one's using a actual wired connection that you can unplug it's just a little micro USB right there and by far the most intriguing thing about this guy's design though is the Xbox logo here actually lights up and does a whole animation while it's plugged into your Xbox the one thing missing from this guy is the fact that while this is still very much the same design up top here everything is sealed off whereas on an original do controller like this guy right here you actually these two slots right here which are used as expansion ports you would use this on the old Xbox to do things like have a memory card plugged into the controller or even using a chat headset now look at these guys you might be wondering how a controller this large actually got into full production and it's kind of a long story we'll do the short version so back when the original Xbox was in development one of Microsoft's big goals was to try and go head-to-head against what was at the time the biggest gaming company Sony with the ps2 on its way the third place the way they wanted to accomplish that was by making their own system which was also gonna do things a little more differently and potentially also listening a lot more to gamers which led to some cool design aspects of the Xbox like having the breakaway cable on the controller so you don't rip it out every time that you're playing a game and get a little too excited so when it came to the controller for the Xbox one though they actually did this to an outside contractor by the name of and I'm sorry if I messed this up Denyce ontari now the problem is she wasn't given free rein to actually build the controller from top to bottom instead she was handed a bunch of designs that were already done just kind of gave the general idea of how they wanted to control her look which was very clearly inspired by a Dreamcast controller and they had already decided what kind of functions they wanted the controller to have like having the expansion slot where you can do memory cards and chat heads ends and all kinds of stuff that sounded cool at the time but resulted in a main circuit board for the system which was huge and already made so instead of making controller and trying to make all these parts fit inside of it she already had the internal parts and had to make the actual shell which was gigantic so like I said bit of a rough situation and so the end of the day of the area became well we're stuck with this this is wave to work with so let's make the best Bergen ohmic most comfortable trailer we can with this size which honestly actually kind of worked out I mean if you have big hands Jack Kelly lawyer this is actually a really comfortable controller and it did have a lot of fans when the system came out but there are a lot of detractors as well and eventually down the line this guy did get replaced by a slimmed-down controller which we really owe basically to Japan fascinating when the Duke was first being shown off to a lot of different game devs and companies about the system that Microsoft's working on a lot of Western devs were fine with it they thought it was a little comically large but something people could still use however when they showed it to Japanese devs it was universally hated everyone was like this is ridiculous this is way too big no one could possibly use this and basically the threat came that we're not even gonna make games for your system if this is the controller you're gonna have because no one's gonna use it which led to the creation of this guy the original Xbox controller s now the way they really make it so guys so much smaller is because thanks to the fact they actually took more time to make it because they were making it for a whole another market they actually had some information that they didn't have back when the Duke was made with the Duke they were forced to work with one gigantic circuit board but it was discovered later that the way a lot of other gaming controllers stay smaller is they actually use a dual circuit board design where there's two boards laid on top of each other with a cable connecting them so they were able to do this internally make the S controller and also shifted a couple things around to make it a little more comfortable in general they did a different stick design the d-pad is an actual d-pad which was a huge improvement and the black and white buttons removed to the bottom rather than the top right here and the back and start buttons are moved to the side making just overall a much more comfortable controller for someone that doesn't have big hands well my hands look this small on the screen now this was exclusive to Japan at launch when it came out back in 2002 but after basically all other audiences saw that this was a thing that existed it was demanded that this come to other territories as well and it did officially make its way to the US and Europe as a new bundled package with Xboxes completely replacing the Duke and its infamous history as this just gigantic thing now I don't want you guys walking away with the history of the Duke kinking that was just some kind of awful mistake that never should have happened this is a really historically significant controller that had a big impact on how controllers are designed I mean the designer did the best job she could with the circumstances given and made a comfy controller we still used these trigger designs the button placement and most importantly this is one of the first big-name controllers that actually use sticks that were not symmetrical you look back at all the PlayStation designs those guys are symmetrical Nintendo at the time only used a single stick with Xbox though they embrace doing something a little different based on player feedback and made in my opinion a more comfortable controller design and it's a design that stuck with the S controller with the Xbox 360 - controller to this day with the Xbox one which is in my opinion the most comfortable controller that's out right now so with all the history out of the way and going back to the hyper Kim doop which is for modern systems how exactly comfortable is this guy to use all right let's do some cuphead I'm probably gonna regret this decision and I definitely remember this feeling jinke I remember being at like demo units way back in the day when they were just first wearing the Xbox and I tried using these controllers or have a smush younger and smaller this is weird this definitely I think varies bit based on what kind of game you're playing because so far just relying on triggers and like traditional face buttons this is pretty comfy okay so I'm already seeing like the immediate one weird thing is anything where you need to use the not the bat not the triggers but like the shoulder buttons are really bizarre feeling because it's just kind of shoe or Dan on the top of this guy and you have to reach up really high to switch to them and you can use the black and white buttons with the same but that requires just as much reach in but with your thumb now which takes away from you know normal controls no it's just it's it's travel distance it's how much you have to move your fingers to any once again there's there's a reason they moved away from this design over time obviously like a current Xbox one controller is gonna be more comfortable than this you always have to like to use a different grip style than you would with a normal controller like where you always have like your middle fingers were on the triggers instead of your index which I know some people do but it's never been that computer for me so if you're looking for a new controller or a place like your standard Xbox one controller maybe don't go this way but if you're a collector if you like kind of cool old retro stuff and something that's kind of this weird fusion of old-school design and something you play on modern system this is a really cool idea time's it perfectly with me dying