An Honest Product Review: Scuf Prestige Xbox Controller (2019)
*This post/review is not sponsored and is a reflection of my own views.
So some sad news. Since Wednesday, I've been testing and trying out the new Scuf Prestige controller that I bought for Xbox and I am already on my way to returning it.
I have to say I was very disappointed by some of the design iteration choices that were made, and honestly could not have foreseen the difficulties I had until I had a controller in my hand.
Previous to my experience with this controller, I had no experience with a customizable or pro-level console controller. I had done lots of research over the past several years, talked to players, watched video reviews, and everything someone could do in the sense of research before actually forking out a chunk of change to get a controller in my hands.
The paddles all sit right below/behind the battery pack in the controller and it feels like you have to maintain a weird claw grip on the back of the controller, just to maintain all four fingers on the four pads. It's honestly baffling to me that the same people who helped design the paddle positioning of the Elite controller, where the paddles are brought to where your fingers naturally sit on the under-grips, decided to move such an ideal and natural placement of the paddles to where they are now positioned. It did not take long for my fingers and hands to become cramped trying to adjust to the new paddle positions.
The hair trigger adjustment felt great out of game, but then was rendered useless by the game I play most often Destiny 2. I'm not sure why I didn't realize this before, but I learned that Destiny 2 has multiple trigger-pull distances for how it deals with certain in-game actions. For Destiny 2 I discovered that there were different trigger-pull distances for aiming, shooting, another for how fast you boost your sparrow, etc. This resulted in me enabling the trigger stops which act as a secondary mechanism to reduce the trigger-pull distance in half, with varying degrees of dissatisfaction of how each action felt on its own.
Another major issue I had with the hair-trigger adjustments was over-sensitivity that caused accidental actuation of the trigger button when holding the controller at rest position or even pressing other buttons. When initially dialing in the distance, I was instructed to dial down the distance on the trigger pull until it felt solid and natural, like when firing a pulse rifle in game I got to a point that felt solid, while my in-game character did not move or use any other actions in game. When I started to move and play and run and shoot, that's when the accidental presses really started to trigger, and sometimes wouldn't even trigger at all.
When I checked on how to troubleshoot the issue, I found that I had over-dialed the hair-triggers and needed to adjust them to the point just before whatever action, shooting for example, I was trying to initiate. Even when troubleshooting for over-sensitivity and dialing back the hair triggers to a point that felt less than ideal in game to get rid of accidental presses, I still had major issues with the trigger pull mechanics. Each action felt overly clunky and messed with my flow of play, which is very important in fast FPS games. It also occurred to me that I would literally have to manually screw-adjust the triggers in every game I switched to and for me that was less ideal than just dealing with the same trigger pull distance across the board with a standard controller. By contrast, Xbox seems to partially resolve those issues with a 3-point trigger stop mechanism for the second iteration of the Elite controller.
The other thing that I guess bothered me was the fact that I have to use a manual key to remap my buttons. Granted until Elite 2.0 comes out, it was either this electromagnetic key for Scuf, or the Xbox Accessories app for the Elite, but the fact that Xbox on this new iteration of the Elite controller understands the need to change key remapping on the fly, speaks volumes as to their forethought into industrial/product design.
As for build quality, I would say with Scuf you definitely feel that the components, the rubberized grips, the faceplate, anti-friction rings for the joysticks, etc, all feel like they are built to last and justify the price point and will not degrade after only a month of use as did many of the triggers, shoulder buttons, and rubberized grips did on the Elite and Xbox Design Lab controllers. Whereas with the Elite 2.0 controller, I still have doubts as to the durability of the materials and components being used, even after reassurances from their design team in Q&A's after E3.
One question you might have is how long did I play with the controller before finalizing my frustrations, well I can tell you that I played with the controller in private PvP and PvE matches for several hours, at the advice of YouTube, to retrain my muscle memory to the new control scheme. After that I played several more hours doing more natural game activities like patrols, strikes, etc. I dared not to go into actual PvP matches as I was still playing inconsistently abysmal even after all of the training and practice.
All in all, I think that Scuf has some of the best controllers out there. They have a solid build quality and are known for great product innovation, especially with their PS4 line of controllers. It does seem odd that a company who directly competes with Xbox and in the past has teamed up with Microsoft, would choose design integrations that seem to regress, rather than innovate, in design when it comes to Xbox controllers. For now, it will be back to my forever-drifting Xbox Creation Lab controller.
So some sad news. Since Wednesday, I've been testing and trying out the new Scuf Prestige controller that I bought for Xbox and I am already on my way to returning it.
I have to say I was very disappointed by some of the design iteration choices that were made, and honestly could not have foreseen the difficulties I had until I had a controller in my hand.
Previous to my experience with this controller, I had no experience with a customizable or pro-level console controller. I had done lots of research over the past several years, talked to players, watched video reviews, and everything someone could do in the sense of research before actually forking out a chunk of change to get a controller in my hands.
 |
| Scuf's Prestige paddle configuration |
 |
| Xbox Elite 2.0 paddle configuration |
The hair trigger adjustment felt great out of game, but then was rendered useless by the game I play most often Destiny 2. I'm not sure why I didn't realize this before, but I learned that Destiny 2 has multiple trigger-pull distances for how it deals with certain in-game actions. For Destiny 2 I discovered that there were different trigger-pull distances for aiming, shooting, another for how fast you boost your sparrow, etc. This resulted in me enabling the trigger stops which act as a secondary mechanism to reduce the trigger-pull distance in half, with varying degrees of dissatisfaction of how each action felt on its own.
Another major issue I had with the hair-trigger adjustments was over-sensitivity that caused accidental actuation of the trigger button when holding the controller at rest position or even pressing other buttons. When initially dialing in the distance, I was instructed to dial down the distance on the trigger pull until it felt solid and natural, like when firing a pulse rifle in game I got to a point that felt solid, while my in-game character did not move or use any other actions in game. When I started to move and play and run and shoot, that's when the accidental presses really started to trigger, and sometimes wouldn't even trigger at all.
 |
| Trigger system as described by Scuf's website. |
When I checked on how to troubleshoot the issue, I found that I had over-dialed the hair-triggers and needed to adjust them to the point just before whatever action, shooting for example, I was trying to initiate. Even when troubleshooting for over-sensitivity and dialing back the hair triggers to a point that felt less than ideal in game to get rid of accidental presses, I still had major issues with the trigger pull mechanics. Each action felt overly clunky and messed with my flow of play, which is very important in fast FPS games. It also occurred to me that I would literally have to manually screw-adjust the triggers in every game I switched to and for me that was less ideal than just dealing with the same trigger pull distance across the board with a standard controller. By contrast, Xbox seems to partially resolve those issues with a 3-point trigger stop mechanism for the second iteration of the Elite controller.
The other thing that I guess bothered me was the fact that I have to use a manual key to remap my buttons. Granted until Elite 2.0 comes out, it was either this electromagnetic key for Scuf, or the Xbox Accessories app for the Elite, but the fact that Xbox on this new iteration of the Elite controller understands the need to change key remapping on the fly, speaks volumes as to their forethought into industrial/product design.
As for build quality, I would say with Scuf you definitely feel that the components, the rubberized grips, the faceplate, anti-friction rings for the joysticks, etc, all feel like they are built to last and justify the price point and will not degrade after only a month of use as did many of the triggers, shoulder buttons, and rubberized grips did on the Elite and Xbox Design Lab controllers. Whereas with the Elite 2.0 controller, I still have doubts as to the durability of the materials and components being used, even after reassurances from their design team in Q&A's after E3.
One question you might have is how long did I play with the controller before finalizing my frustrations, well I can tell you that I played with the controller in private PvP and PvE matches for several hours, at the advice of YouTube, to retrain my muscle memory to the new control scheme. After that I played several more hours doing more natural game activities like patrols, strikes, etc. I dared not to go into actual PvP matches as I was still playing inconsistently abysmal even after all of the training and practice.
All in all, I think that Scuf has some of the best controllers out there. They have a solid build quality and are known for great product innovation, especially with their PS4 line of controllers. It does seem odd that a company who directly competes with Xbox and in the past has teamed up with Microsoft, would choose design integrations that seem to regress, rather than innovate, in design when it comes to Xbox controllers. For now, it will be back to my forever-drifting Xbox Creation Lab controller.
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