Controllers for Big Hands

The other day I talked a little bit about my eternal struggling with trying to find a comfortable controller. I have large hands and this is a problem in a world that seems to love making tiny controllers. For reference the above photo is me and a knock off Xbox One controller that I happened to have laying around the house. The problem that I encounter is that most controllers are workable but grossly uncomfortable for long play sessions, and either end up causing me to contort my shoulders or hands into weird positions in order to use them. I mentioned the other day that I should really do a post on my favorite “big hand” controllers, and apparently that day is today. This is by no means a complete list, but since I have a large amount of controllers laying around the house in my eternal struggle for the perfect one… I have some examples that work pretty well.

Power A Fusion Pro 1.0

This is what I would consider to be my “daily driver” PC Gaming controller when a controller is needed. It stays hooked up to my gaming rig 24/7 and most recently I have been spending a lot of time with it while playing Jedi Fallen Order. I am not entirely certain how I came across this controller originally, other than maybe it had something to do with the 4 buttons on the backside of the controller that give you Scuf-like functionality of rebinding face button keys to be pressed with your fingers gripping the underside. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it keeps the general shape of an Xbox One controller and at the same time extends it to be a bigger and more chonky device.

Some positives are that it has really high quality buttons and the finish of the controller is matte and hugs your hand without rubbing oddly against it like a rubberized texture might. The share and menu buttons are placed unobtrusively, and the dpad is extremely nice and feels completely reasonable to do “fireball” motions with. It is wired which is either a positive or a negative depending on your religion about such things… but lacks any sort of a break away cable making it a tripping hazard. It runs on XInput like all Microsoft controllers and as a result it just works flawlessly with Windows 10, but required a bit of plugging it in and out to get it to recognize with Windows 8/8.1. The thumb sticks are nice but have a rough ring that is a little heavier “grit” than the stock controller so if you have very sensitive skin this might be an issue.

The biggest negative I have about the controller is that is is no longer being made. I specifically called this out as the 1.0 controller and that is because there are two other versions in the wild and for some reason Power A decided to change the shape each time. I’ve gotten hands on the other two models and they are nowhere near as comfortable as this one. As a result I have taken to ebay in order to get a spare. I paid somewhere in the vicinity of $20 for each of mine, but this morning I looked around ebay and they seem to have gone up in price finding this one for $34. You may be able to find these still in the wild but it largely depends on how fast the stock changes out in whatever store you happen to be shopping.

Hori Pad FPS Plus

This WAS my daily driver Playstation 4 controller for a good long while and I own two of them. I am not a big fan of the stick placement of Playstation controllers and greatly preferred the Xbox style staggered stick design. As such I am always looking for good options that allow me to keep playing with a layout I am more comfortable with on my console platform of choice. I was initially tipped off to this controller by my friend Pam who does an excellent video review of it. It has a lot of positives going for it but also some pretty severe negatives. The layout feels good and the shape of the controller is comfortable in the hand. Unfortunately the angle on the backside lead me to grip it too tightly at times and have the tips of my fingers go numb while playing it. The finish also makes the controller feel slick and hard in the hand and very much like you are holding a chunk of cheap plastic.

The triggers themselves are also odd in that they are basically buttons, which leads to some weirdness anytime you are in a situation where you need the analog functionality like throttling up. However for shooters this works pretty freaking well due to the extremely quick throw time on each and mimics a lot of the functionality that a Scuf or similar “pro” controller would do with adjustable stops. The biggest problem I had with the controller are the thumb sticks are similarly cheap feeling and through excessive play of Destiny, I completely wore out the right stick. Since they are non-standard it isn’t like you can get replacement rubber caps for them. I ultimately modded my controller to replace it with a set of after market xbox pro controller magnetic thumbsticks, which work fine but sorta throw off the balance.

The controller has no rumble support, which is either a positive or a negative depending on your point of view. It ends up making the overall feel in the hand be super light, especially if you have large hands. The other challenge is that the touch pad isn’t a touch pad. It is effectively a button, so you can get any functionality that relied on you clicking it, but nothing that relies on you actually using it as a tactile surface. When I first got mine it required me to import it from Play Asia, but in the meantime it has now been released for the North American market and is readily available on Amazon. Weirdly enough Play Asia appears to be the cheapest source going for $44 and the three color variants on Amazon ranging from $48 to $56 each.

Nacon Revolution Pro

This is my new daily driver Playstation 4 controller, and I have to say… once you get past the really screwed up dpad design… it is an amazingly comfortable controller. The biggest negative that we are going to get out of the way is the price tag. If you were to walk into a store and buy this outright you would be paying somewhere between $150 and $200 retail. I absolutely got mine as a gently used model on Ebay for around $50, and if you can do the same then I say the controller is one hell of a deal. This rode in on the wave of “pro” controllers that released after Microsoft started selling theirs. While the Microsoft Pro Controller has replaceable parts, this one is more or less configured into a static design that includes one scooped left thumb stick, one dome right thumb stick, and a weird “iron cross” for lack of a better thing to call it thumb stick. The face buttons also have some weirdness going on in that they are really big and the O sorta extends off the edge of the controller.

All of that said… playing with it just feels good. The dpad thing still weirds me out a bit, but it also more or less works fine for playing fighting games. Though if I am playing fighting games on my PS4 I am likely going to be hooking up my fight stick, or the Hori fight commander. For most PS4 games it feels great, and pretty much replicates all of the functionality of a stock controller. You have a working touch pad, rumble, and still has a headphone jack which is missing from a lot of third party controllers. I think this is a worthy competitor, but only if you can find it at a greatly reduced cost.

Nintendo Switch Pro Controller

Now we are starting into a section where I am going to hand out some honorable mentions. First off we have the Switch Pro Controller, which in itself is not that big of a controller but still manages to have an ergonomic shape that feels extremely comfortable to play with. I could have done with it being about 30% larger, but for what is there it feels pretty solid in the hand. Again it has the staggered thumb stick design that I like, but its biggest negative has to come in at the cost of being $70. If you can find one on sale, it does benefit from being pretty much a universal controller with the ability to use it wirelessly on any bluetooth platform and the XInput support means it natively supports Windows. I really like it, and this was my default method to play switch until I got the Split Pad Pro.

Xbox 360 Controller

This is effectively the default windows controller and still is a pretty strong contender for a no frills gaming experience. Everything about this controller essentially screams “its fine”, but there is something reliable about that. It feels fairly good in the hand and has “just worked” since Windows 7, and comes in a wide variety of colors. I still have several of these because you can get them dirt cheap and they are essentially bullet proof. If you want a reasonably comfortable controller for the bare minimum amount of money, get the USB connected 360 controller.

Steam Controller

I am not a huge fan of the steam controller. I feel like Valve did a massive disservice to this controller when they attempted to reinvent the wheel. That said… the ergonomics of the controller are amazing. It feels really great in the hand and works nicely for big hands like mine. The downside however is that it has a really jacked up control scheme that you will have to wade through in order to make it work with the games you want to play. It spent too much time trying to be both controller and mouse replacement when had it simply just been a good controller I think I would have had a new favorite. If you can find it… it was going for $5 over Black Friday, but I believe those have all sold out.

What am I missing?

Are you a big handed gamer too? Is there a controller that is just amazing that I am missing? Drop me a line in the comments, because I am always looking for the next slightly more perfect controller experience.

3 thoughts on “Controllers for Big Hands”

  1. The original X-box had a monstrously huge controller, to the extent that we even made fun of it at the time. I did some googling and there are some hacks available to get it working with a PC if you have the right random fob (basically a USB adapter that plugs into the break away portion of the cord). If you really need the controller that Sutr would have used, you might look into it 😉

    • They even recently released a new version of the Duke controller, the problem I have with it is uncomfortable shoulder buttons and non-standard face buttons… but the SIZE of the controller is nice heh.

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