Three consoles and two of them come packed in with awful or inadequate D-Pads. Nintendo, of all manufacturers, is doing the worst job right now. With the abundance of indie games, rise of retro collections, and the ever-present fighting genre, it's been annoyingly apparent that the D-pad isn't getting the development attention it needs.
Among things like build quality and features, a pad's value can in part be measured by utility. I don't expect a controller to handle everything perfectly, but what should be expected is for a controller to be able to handle the common/traditional console games well. Aside from the Dualshock 4, the current offerings are a disappointment for digital directional inputs. The coming generation of consoles offer the perfect opportunity for manufacturers to put greater effort into their D-pads.
For Xbox: Ease up the stiffness. The current D-pad jumps directions due to the overly hard clicks.
For Nintendo: Stop sucking. Their D-pads go from good to awful every generation/iteration.
For Playstation: Don't screw it up. The current D-pad already isn't as good as the PS3 or Vita, but it's still worlds better than the competition.
Others (Stadia/3rd partry): Actually test your D-pads instead of treating it like an afterthought.
Among things like build quality and features, a pad's value can in part be measured by utility. I don't expect a controller to handle everything perfectly, but what should be expected is for a controller to be able to handle the common/traditional console games well. Aside from the Dualshock 4, the current offerings are a disappointment for digital directional inputs. The coming generation of consoles offer the perfect opportunity for manufacturers to put greater effort into their D-pads.
For Xbox: Ease up the stiffness. The current D-pad jumps directions due to the overly hard clicks.
For Nintendo: Stop sucking. Their D-pads go from good to awful every generation/iteration.
For Playstation: Don't screw it up. The current D-pad already isn't as good as the PS3 or Vita, but it's still worlds better than the competition.
Others (Stadia/3rd partry): Actually test your D-pads instead of treating it like an afterthought.