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Oct 27, 2017
42,911
Pretty sweet for people who need a dpad in portable mode, price seems okay as well.
Im still waiting for a Nintendo solution since im happy with the current options and have a Pro Controller on the big screen anyway.


...and they also cost nearly twice as much for all the tech pumped in.
Horis device is a niche addon for people who want that D-Pad in portable mode...not a real replacement for the official joycons.

The wireless components definitely aren't doubling their price
 

metsallica

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,835
Here's an unboxing of the US versions:
2QIYIro.png

http://www.ign.com/videos/2018/07/27/new-joy-con-makes-switch-gaming-better-but-theres-a-catch
Hadn't seen these before. Was this even announced for release in the west?
 

Waffle

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,849
Aww why did they put Zelda and Mario designs on them? I'll still be picking one up though :)
 

//ARCANUM

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,407
Here's an unboxing of the US versions:
2QIYIro.png

http://www.ign.com/videos/2018/07/27/new-joy-con-makes-switch-gaming-better-but-theres-a-catch
Hadn't seen these before. Was this even announced for release in the west?

whoah where did this come from??? are these available for purchase anywhere?

edit - oh in the video they say "launching in the west this september" so I guess we gotta wait a lil bit.

edit x2 - the video talks about how HORI chose to not include bluetooth / rumble / etc. But isn't the bluetooth thing Nintendo not allowing it? Is the reviewer just misinformed?
 
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Tailzo

Fallen Guardian
Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,015
I still think I'd rather have the plain blue one, so I look forward to monday. I'll try to write some of my own pros & cons too.
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,154
I'm not normally one to cause a big ruckus or get on a developer's case too heavily (I'm still a big fan of Keiji Inafune, and I think Phil Fish is probably a pretty decent guy), but this Hori dpad joycon is something else. I was ok (albeit mildly disappointed) with it being gimped and relagated to portable mode only, but now it turns out that you can't even leave it attached in portable mode (again, the only way it can be used) because it drains the battery while the Switch is not in use.

It only cost me about $25, but it's a pretty big disappointment so far. It works and feels great all issues aside (and the L/R buttons are wonderfully clicky), but I really hope this is something that can be fixed via firmware, or I'm really going to feel burned by my purchase.
 

Protome

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,786
That battery issue is insane. How did that ever ship lol

edit x2 - the video talks about how HORI chose to not include bluetooth / rumble / etc. But isn't the bluetooth thing Nintendo not allowing it? Is the reviewer just misinformed?
If nintendo didn't allow it then we wouldn't have any other wireless third party controllers.
 

Galactor

Banned
Nov 11, 2017
619
That battery issue is insane. How did that ever ship lol


If nintendo didn't allow it then we wouldn't have any other wireless third party controllers.

nintendo logic: we dont allow wireless + dpad because a kid could try to use this controller as an individual joycon and because there are not buttons he would cry, frustrate and never use a nintendo product again.
 

Protome

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,786
nintendo logic: we dont allow wireless + dpad because a kid could try to use this controller as an individual joycon and because there are not buttons he would cry, frustrate and never use a nintendo product again.
But other controllers already have wireless + d-pad? Or are you suggesting Nintendo don't allow for wireless + D-pad + joycon connector on third party controllers? And is there any evidence to support that?
 

Proteus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,992
Toronto
So the only way to fix the battery drain issue will be through a Nintendo firmware update? Otherwise they would need a recall. Has there been any word on how the fix will be implemented?

Mine should be arriving today/tomorrow.
 

mikehaggar

Developer at Pixel Arc Studios
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
1,379
Harrisburg, Pa
Here's an unboxing of the US versions:
2QIYIro.png

http://www.ign.com/videos/2018/07/27/new-joy-con-makes-switch-gaming-better-but-theres-a-catch
Hadn't seen these before. Was this even announced for release in the west?

It pains me even more to hear that the dpad on this is actually good... no wireless, no buy :(

On a side note, I wonder if the U.S. is only getting the version of this with the designs and not a solid color like the Japanese version. Lastly, where did that guy get the white joycon?! The white is super sexy. I'll take two, please!
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,154
Waiting patiently for impressions.

I'm enjoying mine, despite the battery drain (which I totally forgot about, left it connected in my bag, and only realized when I felt heat from my Switch through my leather bag!). The dpad seems good—not great, but good. My impression of that could improve, but my usual test is to fire up Street Fighter II and do a bunch of fireballs with Ryu or Ken. With the Hori my success rate was not great. Playing Megaman X, I noticed that the L and R buttons are clickier than a regular joycon. This made it feel more responsive for dashing, but it could have been my imagination.

I'll add more impressions once I have time. I would have tested it more, but the battery on my Switch drained during my commute (guess how) so I couldn't play as much as I had planned.
 

nenned

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,104
For those who have both this and the Pro Controller, how does the D Pad compare to that of the Pro Controller?
 

//ARCANUM

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,407
That battery issue is insane. How did that ever ship lol


If nintendo didn't allow it then we wouldn't have any other wireless third party controllers.

But are there wireless third party controllers? The only one I know of is the 8bitdo and that's "unofficial" / "unlicensed". The "licensed" ones like PDP and HORI are all hardwired.

My point being that even though it's possible, I wonder if Nintendo tells them that they'll only allow them to make the controllers if they're not wireless. Maybe there's a licensed third party wireless controller I'm forgetting though...
 
Oct 27, 2017
1,154
For those who have both this and the Pro Controller, how does the D Pad compare to that of the Pro Controller?

Physically, the Pro dpad actually feels better to me. The Hori dpad is quite squishy (and it is an absolute squishy mess compared to the crisp Vita dpad).

That being said, I had zero accidental drops in a test run of Tetris in Puyo Puyo Tetris. In a round of Super Street Fighter II Turbo I was ten for twelve in fireball attempts (with a stick I tend to be perfect), and in another round was four for seven on dragon punch attempts. Playing Gunbird 2 felt great, and I was able to navigate precisely without accidentally going where I didn't want to go.

Aside from the dpad, the analog stick is nearly identical to the regular joycon. As I already mentioned, the L button has a nice click to it that feels better to me than the standard joycon. The minus button is oddly raised and feels awkward to press.

Overall, the squishiness is not as big of an issue as I have perhaps made it seem. The controller is fun to use, but the dpad is in no way a contender with the best of them. It is squishier than the Pro controller, but the fact that it doesn't give false inputs more than makes up for that. Based on my initial tests, I predict that the Hori will be great for platformers, where a stable and precise input is key, but not as good for fighting games which require significant mobility in the dpad. Unless it loosens up significantly with use, this thing just doesn't move well enough to compete in games
requiring more complex inputs.
 
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Tailzo

Fallen Guardian
Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,015
No worries my doggy!
Haha :P

pqeu0SA.jpg

The build quality is good, d-pad feels like a d-pad now.

My daughter actually used the d-pad instead of the analogue stick today.

+clicked perfectly into place
+looks good, not like a knock off
+Sonic Mania feels even better
+very low price, and fast shipping from Japan

-no wireless
-I would prefere grey instead of blue

I don't care about no rumble
 

Tailzo

Fallen Guardian
Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,015
I will try to compare it with my hori wired switch pro controller later. Great first impression though.
 

//ARCANUM

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,407
Haha :P

pqeu0SA.jpg

The build quality is good, d-pad feels like a d-pad now.

My daughter actually used the d-pad instead of the analogue stick today.

+clicked perfectly into place
+looks good, not like a knock off
+Sonic Mania feels even better
+very low price, and fast shipping from Japan

-no wireless
-I would prefere grey instead of blue

I don't care about no rumble

That looks like Switch XL

LOL right? Looks giant in those tiny hands lol.

Edit - also, question for everyone: I prefer the blue japanese version to the american wacky versions, but I know the japanese version has the battery drain issue. I imagine there's no way to update these controllers, so is this something they'll have to fix with a recall / just making new versions of these? I don't want to buy the japanese version and it just permanently has the battery drain issue.
 

fiendcode

Member
Oct 26, 2017
24,964
Western launch will probably be timed with Switch Online for all those NES games. Probably also why they're doing the Mario & Zelda themes.
 

ScOULaris

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,831
Edit - also, question for everyone: I prefer the blue japanese version to the american wacky versions, but I know the japanese version has the battery drain issue. I imagine there's no way to update these controllers, so is this something they'll have to fix with a recall / just making new versions of these? I don't want to buy the japanese version and it just permanently has the battery drain issue.
I'd imagine that the battery drain issue persists across both versions of these controllers. Nintendo will have to patch the OS to fix the problem, I'd say. That's likely to happen seeing as how this is an officially licensed product, so hopefully we won't have to wait too long. Once that happens I'll probably pick up the Japanese blue one.
 

GitarooMan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
703
I mean is this even worth it with it missing so many features?
It's worth it if you want to play with a good Dpad in handheld mode, which is useful for a bunch of games on Switch. Otherwise no. It's filling a certain need; if you don't feel like the dpad in handheld is important obviously you wouldn't get it. Outside of handheld there are other options like the Pro Controller or fighting sticks etc.
 
Dec 23, 2017
8,802
It's worth it if you want to play with a good Dpad in handheld mode, which is useful for a bunch of games on Switch. Otherwise no. It's filling a certain need; if you don't feel like the dpad in handheld is important obviously you wouldn't get it. Outside of handheld there are other options like the Pro Controller or fighting sticks etc.
Does Nintendo have those features patented where a third party can't create a joy-con with a d-pad with those features?
 

Snkfanatic

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,179
Haha :P

pqeu0SA.jpg

The build quality is good, d-pad feels like a d-pad now.

My daughter actually used the d-pad instead of the analogue stick today.

+clicked perfectly into place
+looks good, not like a knock off
+Sonic Mania feels even better
+very low price, and fast shipping from Japan

-no wireless
-I would prefere grey instead of blue

I don't care about no rumble

Awesome, thanks for impressions, and yeah that pic is hilarious. Switch looks HUGE hahah.

Looking forward to getting mine. I preordered the Mario version.
 

IsaacC

Alt Account
Banned
Jun 17, 2018
384
I'd imagine that the battery drain issue persists across both versions of these controllers. Nintendo will have to patch the OS to fix the problem, I'd say. That's likely to happen seeing as how this is an officially licensed product, so hopefully we won't have to wait too long. Once that happens I'll probably pick up the Japanese blue one.
I don't think the battery drain issue can be fixed via patch. Likely the issue is hardware, not software. The D-pad controller simply isn't shutting itself off when the switch is powered down. Likely this is because usually people don't shut off their switch, they put it in sleep mode. What seems to be the issue is that even while in sleep mode, the joy-con continues to use the same amount of power, instead of hibernating/shutting off itself.

The fix would have to be built into newer units. Essentially just a bit of power management programming so that the joy-con knows when the switch is hibernating and will shut off or go low power mode accordingly. This should be a very easy fix and as I mentioned before, I would actually be shocked if they didn't have this issue fixed for the global launch of this product.

Hori is spending a lot of money borrowing Nintendo's IP to help sell these, so if there is a known issue that is easy to fix, you had etter believe that they will fix it. Nintendo needs to approve all products that carry their IP and they wouldn't allow a crummy product to sport Zelda/Mario branding, especially knowingly.

And Hori isn't going to spend all that cash branding these and not spend the minor amount of time making sure there are no known issues for the global launch.
 

nenned

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,104
Physically, the Pro dpad actually feels better to me. The Hori dpad is quite squishy (and it is an absolute squishy mess compared to the crisp Vita dpad).

That being said, I had zero accidental drops in a test run of Tetris in Puyo Puyo Tetris. In a round of Super Street Fighter II Turbo I was ten for twelve in fireball attempts (with a stick I tend to be perfect), and in another round was four for seven on dragon punch attempts. Playing Gunbird 2 felt great, and I was able to navigate precisely without accidentally going where I didn't want to go.

Aside from the dpad, the analog stick is nearly identical to the regular joycon. As I already mentioned, the L button has a nice click to it that feels better to me than the standard joycon. The minus button is oddly raised and feels awkward to press.

Overall, the squishiness is not as big of an issue as I have perhaps made it seem. The controller is fun to use, but the dpad is in no way a contender with the best of them. It is squishier than the Pro controller, but the fact that it doesn't give false inputs more than makes up for that. Based on my initial tests, I predict that the Hori will be great for platformers, where a stable and precise input is key, but not as good for fighting games which require significant mobility in the dpad. Unless it loosens up significantly with use, this thing just doesn't move well enough to compete in games
requiring more complex inputs.

Thanks for the impressions!
 

fiendcode

Member
Oct 26, 2017
24,964
tbh, I kinda wish Hori had gone whole hog on this given these are single use case: 2D indies, 2D fighters and retro games in handheld mode. Do a (clicky) dpad centrally located with NO analog stick on the L. Then do a R too, also drpping the stick and adding 6 face buttons instead. Then do them in Saturn and NeoGeo colors.
 

//ARCANUM

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,407
I don't think the battery drain issue can be fixed via patch. Likely the issue is hardware, not software. The D-pad controller simply isn't shutting itself off when the switch is powered down. Likely this is because usually people don't shut off their switch, they put it in sleep mode. What seems to be the issue is that even while in sleep mode, the joy-con continues to use the same amount of power, instead of hibernating/shutting off itself.

The fix would have to be built into newer units. Essentially just a bit of power management programming so that the joy-con knows when the switch is hibernating and will shut off or go low power mode accordingly. This should be a very easy fix and as I mentioned before, I would actually be shocked if they didn't have this issue fixed for the global launch of this product.

Hori is spending a lot of money borrowing Nintendo's IP to help sell these, so if there is a known issue that is easy to fix, you had etter believe that they will fix it. Nintendo needs to approve all products that carry their IP and they wouldn't allow a crummy product to sport Zelda/Mario branding, especially knowingly.

And Hori isn't going to spend all that cash branding these and not spend the minor amount of time making sure there are no known issues for the global launch.

So in your opinion, the current Japanese model is just borked and those who own it are out of luck I guess?
 

Needham

Member
Oct 25, 2017
59
The release button on the back of the joycon sticks way out and it won't fit nice in my Skull & Co grip. It pushes the joycon out a bit and now the L and ZL buttons don't line up with the button covers on the grip and I can't press them. Now I'm sad.

I wonder if I can cobble some Frankenstein joycon out of a normal one and the hori version?

EDIT

Popped the thing open. Looks like it would just be easier to cut a small hole in the back of my grip.
 
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MonadoPurge

Member
Apr 30, 2018
161
North Carolina
Seems odd to have one official controller on the right and a mock-up on the left, especially considering the buttons and joy-stick probably feel quite different than the official one.
 

IsaacC

Alt Account
Banned
Jun 17, 2018
384
So in your opinion, the current Japanese model is just borked and those who own it are out of luck I guess?
Yeah kind of. I mean, that is sort of how it goes when you live in a test market. They will have follow up releases of the product beyond just that blue one I suspect.