Sony and Microsoft have spent millions of dollars on developing their next-gen controllers to suit a range of game genres. This is all fine and dandy for game genres that were born on Sony and Microsoft consoles, but what about genres that pre-date PlayStation and Xbox?
The fighting game genre was born in arcades, with a control scheme prominently centered around a stick with 4 to 6 face buttons. We haven’t seen a console launch with a controller using that button layout since the Sega Saturn. Thankfully, over the years there have been companies producing fightsticks for consoles that brings the arcade feel home, the biggest being Mad Catz.
As I previously reported, next-gen consoles have launched… and it has been pretty rough for stick players. Sony has officially said that PS3 fightsticks would work on PS4 if the developers chose to add that feature. Injustice: Gods Among Us is currently the only fighting game on PS4, and has been confirmed as incompatible with every fightstick on the market… with even MarkMan from Mad Catz saying PS4 was not compatible with PS3 sticks. The Xbox One doesn’t fare much better, with no 360 controller support and a wallet draining $200 Killer Instinct Arcade FightStick Tournament Edition 2 as the only option available on that platform.
Similarly, the FPS genre originated on PC with a keyboard and mouse layout. Games like Halo made significant strides towards assisted aiming using a less accurate analog stick, but there are still many purists out there that prefer mouse aiming.
Were next-gen consoles just so space-age-high-tech that our mere “last-gen” tinker toy controllers couldn’t communicate with them? The Rosetta Stone has been found; I give you: the CronusMax.
PS4 controller on Xbox One, 360 controller on PS4, WiiU Classic Controller on Xbox One, PS4 on 360, even keyboard and mouse on Xbox One… it’s an orgy of control options. The best part is the cost is about the same as a new game.
Sony and Microsoft could have easily had legacy support for older devices… they simply chose not to.
Being a new product, it is hard to say at the moment just how well this device works. Similar converters in the past have suffered from input lag. Also, if this is really a scheme by Sony and Microsoft to make you buy new peripherals, they could possibly update their consoles to block this device. Sony has blocked an adaptor that let you play with 360 controllers on PS3 in the past.
Still, this brings up a pretty big point. If an adaptor like this was made less than a month after these consoles released, it wasn’t that difficult to make. Sony and Microsoft could have easily had legacy support for older devices… they simply chose not to.
Maybe the GameSkinny test lab can give the CronusMax a try when they’re not too busy running laptop cases over with cars.
