You might judge me for this, but when I get mad at games, I occasionally bash keyboards and/or throw controllers. Usually, it’s no big deal. A few moments later, I start feeling better, and I pick up my controller and play some more. Last night was different. My PS4 controller, sadly, did not survive the incident.
In the moment, it only made me angrier. I’d just died from yet another one-shot kill in Persona 5, and I wasn’t expecting my controller to treat it as a permadeath run. Besides, I hadn’t even thrown it that hard or far. It was a three-foot drop, tops. I’ve been using the same Xbox 360 controller with my PC for five years, and it’s been through worse on several different occasions. Still works like a charm.
“Oh GREAT,” I said to myself, trying to keep my voice down so as not to wake my neighbour, but definitely failing. “Another thing to be furious about!” I turned off my PS4 and decided to go to bed.
Minutes later, I got up, walked back over to my PS4, and examined my controller — my only PS4 controller. Not a scratch on it. I shook it. No rattling sounds or evidence that its insides had suddenly melted into a tar-like plastic puree. It couldn’t really be dead, I figured. Maybe it was just… sleeping. I pressed the center button, but once again, nothing happened.
Then I started to feel guilty. I don’t use my PS4 all that often, so my PS4 controller has always been the loneliest child of my little controller family. My mouse/keyboard and Xbox 360 controller get lavished with attention — and heck, I even use my Steam controller from time-to-time — but my PS4 controller once sat at the bottom of a laundry basket for about a year (another story for another time, friends). It died as it lived: ingloriously.
Eventually, I fell asleep in a state somewhere between rage (at myself this time) and sadness. I did not dream.
I’m sorry, first and only PlayStation 4 controller I’ve ever owned. I didn’t realise you were so brittle because, well, I never really got to know you, did I? That was my fault. I assumed a lot about you, and my inaction spoke volumes. You weren’t a bad controller, by any means. You had decent heft, and I enjoyed your triggers. Your grip texture took some getting used to, but I liked it in the end.
I plan to give you a viking funeral, or, failing that, your own special place in that one closet I never open for fear of everything falling out and crushing me, rendering me dead before I can even say, “Oh yeah, that’s why I never open this closet!” Someday, of course, I’ll buy a new PS4 controller. I mean, I’ve got Persona to play. I’m sure you understand. You’d have probably purchased a new me, if things happened the other way around.
When I do buy that new controller, though, I want you to know that I’ll try really hard not to throw it. And if I do anyway, I’ll make sure to consult a guide first.
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