Hasta La Ideas

Although there were a handful of gaming consoles at one point in history, the industry has more or less settled upon two major platforms, both of which have their own game controller design. The continued success of the Nintendo Switch gave rise to a third brand and a third controller layout, though it closely resembled the Microsoft Xbox controller layout except for one important aspect: the face or “ABXY” buttons. This means that the same wireless controller could be used for both the Nintendo Switch and Xbox-compatible games (presuming it supported both technologies), but you have to remember to switch layouts and, more importantly, not be confused by the letters on the buttons. Thankfully, this controller design has a curious fix for that.

Designer: GameSir

Truth be told, it’s not that hard to change button layouts for controllers that support switching back and forth between different platforms. What’s tricky, however, is to remember which layout is active at the time, which is hard to determine simply by looking at the controller. After all, even if you swap the function of the A and B buttons, the markings on them remain the same. That is unless you use the GameSir Tarantula Pro.

At first glance, the controller looks like any PlayStation-style controller, just overloaded with decals, RGB lighting, buttons, and switches. It has, however, a rather unique mechanism where a sequence of buttons activates a gear that changes the letters and layout on the face buttons from the four colors of an Xbox-compatible controller to the monochrome style for the Switch. You can even peek at the gear that turns to make this switch, no pun intended, through a small transparent window on one of the right-side handles.

Beyond this, the GameSir Tarantula Pro is actually full of additional features, like no less than 9 buttons you can map to different actions, four switches on the back for turning certain functions on or off, and, of course, some RGB lighting to add flavor to your gaming. That said, the compatibility of the controller is limited to PC, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android. No Xbox officially on the list, despite supporting that standard Xbox ABXY layout.

Even more ironic is that the controller itself is shaped like a stereotypical PlayStation controller, with long vertical handles and joysticks at the center. This is still one of the biggest schisms between consoles that prevent the design of a universal controller. Unfortunately, it’s also something that a shifting mechanism can’t easily solve just yet.

The post GameSir Tarantula Pro controller has a clever solution to button layout problems first appeared on Yanko Design.