OUYA is redesigning their controllers

[GamerPeBod]

UPDATE 1/24/13

From: http://www.ouya.tv/its-all-about-control/

The controller’s the thing. We’ve been working from the beginning to make the controller experience as honed, fast and precise as possible.
Since the release of the OUYA Dev Console last month, developers around the world have sent us a ton of emails, comments, videos and forum posts… all about our controller. A lot of the feedback underscored things we were already changing, some comments were totally new, but ALL were great to hear.
With our latest build, we wanted to share some of the tweaks we’ve made:
D-pad: OK, OK we heard you . We’ve changed our D-pad from a ‘disc’ to a ‘cross’ style. W00t! Gone are the days of the “accidental” diagonal move. Accuracy and precision are back.

Thumbsticks: The Dev console thumbstick top caps needed more grip, so we’ve added a rubberized top. This will give better traction and just feel better than the current design.
Touch Pad: It will be more responsive! The final material will help a lot. PRO TIP: In “Settings”, you can set the cursor speed to the fastest level to make it even more responsive.
Triggers: Take two — these weren’t *there* yet, so we’ve improved the design and mechanics. We heard you want them a little more flush with the body of the controller. So that’s what we’ve done.
Battery Bay: We’ve secured the battery for a snug fit! And the pull tab will be made out of a higher-quality material.
So there you have it. You talk. We listen (some of the time, at least and OUYA keeps getting better. Thank you.
Oh, and one last thing — we’re constantly pushing our controller to be as fast and responsive as possible. If that means setting up our lead engineer with an oscilloscope to test the button-to-screen latency of our controller down to the millisecond, so be it. Check it out:

We’re serious here. We want to make OUYA the best it can possibly be. So don’t stop telling us what you think — we can’t do it without you. You know where to find us… at www.ouya.tv, or via Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Google+.
Muffi
Team OUYA

I love the fact that OUYA is listening to fans and changing the controller based on what we have to say!

The company is still redesigning its game controller based on fan feedback. The device has a “D-pad” control mechanism, but fans pointed out that it too closely resembled Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game controller, which is circular in shape and prone to accidental diagonal button pushes.
Uhrman said the designers are shifting to a square D-pad, which is more Sony-like and less prone to unintentional button pushes.
“We are still fine-tuning the controller,” she said. “It removes the mistaken button press and makes it more precise. That’s a big change.”

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/23/ou...GSSODzSBlIF.99

[Retrofan]

Nice. The Ouya-team strikes again.

[Dreamzle]

I dunno if I'd call that evidence of them listening to fans or developers, because in their dev kit unboxing video, where the dpad design was revealed, they said they were still working on the controller, and were going to change the dpad and the triggers. And I think they may have even mentioned that the current dpad was too easy to detect diagonals. So it's just more evidence that they are gamers themselves and know what the problems are.

[g1i1ch]

Why don't they just make a nintendo directional pad. We all know it's the best of them all. Didn't their patent expire in 2005?

[Jack_Mcslay]

Here's hoping they are not going to use the god-awful gap between directions that we see on the playstation D-Pad.

Why don't they just make a nintendo directional pad. We all know it's the best of them all. Didn't their patent expire in 2005?

Because it's not? Ask any retro gamer, and with rare exceptions they will say the best d-pad of all is the saturn's.

[João Costa]

Here's hoping they are not going to use the god-awful gap between directions that we see on the playstation D-Pad.

Because it's not? Ask any retro gamer, and with rare exceptions they will say the best d-pad of all is the saturn's.

Totally agree. Saturn's D-pad was the best ever. (the 1st Euro version).

[Masaaki]

OK, I'm probably gonna get some flak from the other retro gamers for saying this, but here goes.
The Saturn D-pad was... OK. IMHO not the best D-pad I've ever used. My personal favorites are the Gameboy Color D-pad and to the PS2 D-pad.

[g1i1ch]

OK, I'm probably gonna get some flak from the other retro gamers for saying this, but here goes.
The Saturn D-pad was... OK. IMHO not the best D-pad I've ever used. My personal favorites are the Gameboy Color D-pad and to the PS2 D-pad.

Agreed, even though I was a Sega console fanboy, I have to say for me Nintendo always had the best. Never been a Sony fan though so I can't say anything about it.

[Konstantin Geldard]

Whatever happened to this design?

[HellRa1SeR]

I dont have an access to the controller, but IMHO I feel that the controller is too broad for my liking near the bottom area. It may constrict movement. A subtle curve or something of that order might look and feel better.