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koralis

Well-known member
After the second of my XBox controllers broke down, I decided I was in the market for a new controller and prejudiced against MS at this point... started looking around and settled on Thrustmaster eswap Pro X.


That's a nice stick.

1) Feels great

2) joysticks are the magnetic variety so should last longer, and if they go eventually go bad can swap in new ones more cheaply than a brand new controller.

3) Liked the idea of being able to try out the symmetrical stick (playstation controller) setup... didn't care for it, so went back to the standard Xbox arrangement.

4) Thrustmaster software allowing tweaking of the stick sensitivity at different degrees of deflection is nice.

5) Alternative sockets available so that you can do the traditional 3-button up-top for streetfighter, etc if you want

6) Wired only (my preference anyway) with a really beefy plug connector that takes all the stress relief off the plug. that was always a point of failure for my cell phones and one of the defunct xbox controllers I was replacing.


Downsides

1) Expensive, but compared to a GPU these days, not

2) Only the standard XBox buttons available. I was expecting to be able to map the extra flightstick buttons and/or keyboard presses to the buttons on the underside of the controller to use if the game allowed it. I suspect this is a factor of being an Xbox-licensed product. Damn microsoft.


Conclusions

I'm pretty happy with it. Given that I decided that the symmetrical wasn't working for me, and the limitations imposed by the MS licensing, the Pro S would have saved $20 or so. The X CAN replace the D-pad, but I suspect that's not a part that probably wears out any faster than X/y/etc.
 
always hated the XBox controllers, mainly because of their asymmetrical design. Also that's really pricey for something like a controller, but hey, if you like it and it's worth it for you then go for it.
 
Just thought I'd write a mini-review in case others are wondering, and figured it was as good a place as any for other people to chime in about their likes/dislikes of various controllers. Replacement cost of a stick module is about $25. Or can get a "pack" of all the modules/decoration for $40 with different colors, etc.

Regarding the asymetrical design, it works for me because most of the time you're using the left stick + top buttons. Those are the controls that are naturally under your thumbs in that layout. To use the left stick in the lower-left "D-pad position" feels awkward to me even if it's intellectually more pleasing. Might be different if I was playing something like Robotron where two sticks are in continual use and designed to work in tandem (and I can rearrange the modules to support that if it seems better for the game), but it cost me an extra $20 to find out instead of ending up with a stick I just couldn't use at all.
 
i never had a XBox, so i never got used to the controllers, instead i grew up with the playstation controllers, maybe that's why i'm now having a hard time shifting to the XBox ones, i dunno. In the end it's, as usual, personal preference.

As for the review, that's cool, i always prefer first-hand user experience over some "professional" one.
 
I only ever used Xbox controller with PC so recommend that. I wish I could use the series X controller but not sure if that is possible without additional hardware.
 
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