Video: These D-Pad Joy-Con Shells are Great, But Come with a Cautionary Tale

"I just didn't have enough shaft to work with.." - A very unsatisfied Alex

I watched one of these last night. It was a transparent orange shell. The person did give caution, I wouldn't want to try this, too dangerous and voids your warranty. Nintendo sooner or later will release an official model.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvbMv96FqbE

I'm aware that Alex had trouble with the replacement Philips head screws, but word of warning too for anyone that tries this, be careful when unscrewing and screwing the tri wing screws, it's apparently very easy to strip the head's thread. You need to push down on them with sufficient force that the screwdriver doesn't slip.

I um... That was a ride an a half to watch.

As someone who used to swear by D-pads I find I'm getting on surprisingly well with the Joy-con. I wish I could say the same for the Pro controller though. It's an amazing controller but it has the worst D-pad Nintendo have ever put out. Would rather see NL make a video about that issue as its never been brought up here by the writers. Bring it to Nintendo's attention because when VC does arrive and the masses who own one find out they can't make Link walk in a straight line in LTTP, there will be a lot of noise. Don't say i didn't warn you!

Alternative solution :
Use your Wiimotes + Nunchuck / Wiimote + Classic Pro Controller after new update for Switch

@OorWullie In your opinion you mean, if they like the pro controller why would they bring it up. I think the pro controller d-pad is better than X1 or PS4 controller.

I now have use for the faulty left joycon that I got on launch. Now I have a reason to use it since I bought the yellow ones as well. I think I might check these out!

I know I'm in the minority here, but I don't see much difference between the joy-cons and a D-pad. Then again I adapt quickly to new controllers, so I'm not usually bothered by these things.

@Hughesy Not just my opinion, just enter Switch Pro D-pad and you'll find countless complaints and videos on how to repair.No doubt others will back me up on this here too like they did last time. It might have been fixed with newer models but anyone who owns one from summer or before and owns Puyo Puyo Tetris will tell you the same. That game is unplayable with it, as is Shock Troopers 1 and 2,Aero Fighters 2 (not quite unplayable bit close). There are others too.

NL reviewed it when the controller was new so will no doubt have the same as mine. It's not even an "in your opinion" thing as it basically makes certain games unplayable. It's fact rather than opinion.

Just to back myself up, here's the issue being reported by Nintendoworldreport , a respectable albeit small Nintrendo site.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/editorial/44760/the-switch-pro-controllers-d-pad-dysfunction

Taken from one paragraph.

"The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller's D-Pad is likely the worst version of the input device Nintendo has ever released. The biggest flaw is that it's almost impossible to rock the D-Pad left and right without mistakenly hitting an up or down input as well. It's way too sensitive. If you hold any one direction and lightly rock it, the device will trigger other inputs."

So a few faulty controllers means it’s the worst d-pad ever? Had mine since launch and it works perfectly. Every product will have a certain failure rate. For instance my water pump in my PC broke last week, but it’s still one of the best on the market. You can search any product online and find people with issues....

@Hughesy It's not just a faulty few though,every controller is the same. It's a design flaw. Check the link I posted above,i edited my comment after replying. Maybe you just haven't played a certain game where you would notice it. Some games it works great with and you'd be none the wiser it has issues. Try playing Puyo Puyo Tetris or its demo or Shock Troopers or a 1v1 fighter and you'll see what I mean.

@NoxAeturnus
I'm sorry playing Street fighter without a d-pad is not even remotely the same

While I get why people want D-Pads on their left joycon, I just have found myself in too many situations where 2 of us play on the go that I can't justify doing this. Playing with one joycon on its side with a single piece d-pad as your ABXY buttons just would not be ideal. I may get one of their non D-pad shells for the joycons though.

@OorWullie I am aware of the issue you're talking about, but in all honesty, I've had no issues playing Puyo Puyo Tetris with the pro controller's D-pad.

@OorWullie I've been using the Pro Controller since launch day and the dpad works perfectly fine for me. It's light years better than the PS4 dpad. I've used it for Puyo and have no problems with it. In fact I just re-tested it with Tetris to double check and it works flawlessly. I use it for Sonic Mania all the time too, no problems.

@SLIGEACH_EIRE I worked on old Apple laptops way back and that seemed to be the case with their hardware as well. They had standard philips head screws but they were very tiny, very easily stripped, and usually very well secured in place. I had to get a high quality precision screwdriver that is designed so you can really apply your body weight as you try to unscrew to do it right. The screws always seemed to be the biggest hurdle for me when working on those things.

Seems like the manufacturer could have figured out that maybe including 10 cents worth of self tapping screws would have gone a long way to making this a great product. Pound wise and penny dumb...

@SuperWeird Yeah the Switch Pro controller has always had a great d-pad IMO, I agree that it's definitely better than the PS4 controller's d-pad. I honestly have no idea what anyone could be complaining about, and I use controllers that are famous for their d-pad such as the Saturn controller and SNES controller.

@OorWullie That’s still just a personal preference, not a design flaw. I play SF and find the d-pad great, because it’s sensitive I find it easier to do what I want it to do compared to an Xbox One controller.

@Anti-Matter I would love it if they added support for all the Wii controllers!

You MUST get yourself a good pair of tools for this. I stripped many of the heads and broke one joy-con when I used a screwdriver that I got from my GBA modding. I then got the set linked below and haven't stripped a screw head since.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06ZYBQXYQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

@10-zx Let's not go there...

@Octane

OK, officer.

I ordered the white joycon shells that Alex showed back in the summer, from this same company. When mine arrived, they came with the replacement Phillips head screws, but I decided not to use them and just reused the original tri-wings. Glad I did. Haven't had any issues with them, and I really like them.

And to wade into the ongoing discussion, the Pro Controller's D-pad is trash, easily the worst Nintendo has ever made, and the individual buttons on the joycon are infinitely better. Pro-controller is a great controller for anything that uses the analogue sticks, but if I'm going for a D-pad, I use the joycon.

@OorWullie whilst it's definitely not up there with the NES/SNES dpads it's certainly better then most I've used recently. I've had no issues finishing Sonic Mania and Shovel Knight using it and much prefer it to the joycons. It can be a bit sensitive for Bomberman but certainly not unplayable. I will say I use the Hori pad for Street Fighter 2 which has an attachable dpad over the 4 buttons to make it feel like a Megadrive controller with a rolling dpad. I'll probably be getting the 8bit do SNES pro controller so I'll be sorted one way or another 😃

@SuperWeird @Hughesy @carlos82 @duffmmann @JayJ Sorry to include you all in the same post but it makes sense

The D-pad on your own controller must be slightly different to mine then. Maybe they were manufactured at different factories that used different parts or something I don't know. As anyone with my own controller wouldn't be happy with the D-pad,it's not something you could get used to as it's issues are very obvious. If I was to quickly push a direction 10 times, at least 3 of them would be the wrong input. When I'm playing Shock Troopers,an 8-direction overhead run-and-gun, unless I'm concentrating on my inputs just walking in a straight line is a challenge, let alone taking down enemies. The D-pad wobbles and is overly sensitive.I want to quickly shoot ahead, my character shoots directionally.My Neo Geo fighters are also unplayable with it. If I want to do a simple hadoken style move, my character ends up jumping half the time. If I didn't know many others were having the exact same problem and that Nintendo are just sending back controllers sent in for repair in the same state I would have assumed mine to be faulty and sent it in myself.I'm not really one to complain about stuff but after spending 70 quid on this basically for the D-pad,to then get one I can't even use for the games I've bought it for, it's a bit of a sore one. It's the last thing I'd expect to have issues with on a Nintendo controller.

@daveh30 Yep, glad to have someone in here who has the same issues. Those who are happy with the D-pad can't have the same ones as we have as it's impossible to be happy with it. It's got one job, to accurately control my character and at least 30% of the time it doesn't do it.

@OorWullie Yeah, your dpad must be more sensitive than mine. I play all of the Neo Geo games with it and have no issues. Just beat Last Blade last night using the Pro Controller's dpad.

I absolutely love my Pro Controller D-PAd.

@Octane

Actually, no. Why is he allowed to go there?

Sounds like they, uh... really put the screws to you.

I bought a case when I read the news. Thank God that I decided to leave my native screws. But my cases have a problem, it does not converge about 1mm from the side of the rails. They closed, but the gap remained. Despite all this, it's very convenient to use d-pad in portable mode.

Here is a photo:
http://puu.sh/yHzGD/900e45508a.jpg

@OorWullie It's even worse than the GameCube controller's D-Pad? Wow, that's pretty bad.

Yeah, I'll just wait for an official release... :-/
Thanks for the warning though!

@OorWullie I'm surprised at how terrible that d-pad is. I actually prefer the joycon analogue stick over the pro controller d-pad.

@BulbasaurusRex You have to play with it a while to realize how bad it is. I think it comes from two things: the whole D-Pad is a single button, and there is a TON of travel to go from an unpressed to pressed state. The one button setup cause false reads at times. So like if you push "left" on the D-pad but your finger isn't AAAALLLL the way on the left corner but a little bit to the center, the D-pad might register "left + up" or "left+right" being pressed, even though you are really only pressing "left". The amount a travel on the D-pad just makes it hard to quickly tap or quickly change from one direction to another. It's the same issue that the DS Lite d-pad and buttons had, but much much worse.

These will be a must have for me, especially before we get all those megaman games. I’ll do whatever needs to be done. I’ll be getting the purple to match my atomic purple gameboy color.

The same thing happened to me!
I ordered the gray transparent ones with the d-pad and the snes-coloured face buttons.

The d-pad is great. The shells are great (better than the original ones).
But the replacement screws are garbage!

On my left Joycon, the bottom outward screw's head just broke off. I left it like that because the shell is still holding together pretty tighly.

So I thought "ok, I'll use the original triwing screws for the right Joycon." But just like Alex's, I completely stripped them.
I actually had to destroy the shell completely to get everything out again and that plastic is really strong!
So I ordered a second pair, screwed the screws in carefully... and the inner bottom screw's head just broke off!
The bad thing is: apparently the screw in this position is crucial, because now the shell won't close completely there.
But I don't know if I want to spend another 15 euros on those; I already spent 30...

The whole process was very frustrating and infuriating, I don't think I'll endure another round of this kind of torture... unless I get my some proper replacement screws.

@tguk911

agreed, i don't think @NoxAeturnus plays any 2D fighters to any serious level. even basic street fighter 2 is a chore on the standard set-up.
Maybe we will get an official dpad joycon combo with the street fighter anniversary edition.

@ICISAZEL
One can only hope I mean they sell individual right and left ones why not just make a left one with a d-pad! I'd even take a third party one from a good peripheral company like Hori but I don't think we'll be seeing third party joy-cons anytime soon. Speaking of the 30th anniversary edition I got my iam8bit street fighter 2 30th anniversary edition last week!

@ICISAZEL @tguk911 Correct. Fighting games are rarely my thing.

Why is this site trying to turn into a YouTube channel. I can visit hundreds of much better personalities there, I come here for articles and editorials, not an ad push on YT.