I’m often close enough to my PC while playing games that wireless seems a little unneeded, but more than that, I just want fewer batteries to manage.

Adjusted title to mention preference for no batteries.

  • ALostInquirer@lemm.eeOP
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    3 days ago

    So it’s really just that the battery adds a bit of weight, and someday the thing will fail and maybe cause electrical failure of the gamepad.

    Emphasis added, yeah this is among the reasons I’m asking. The other reasons I’ve noted, but this underlies a lot of it. I don’t know how long the dual-use ones’ batteries may last if I’m primarily using them wired, so instead of having that in the back of mind, I’d like to get a wired controller for when gaming on devices I’m already close to (which is mostly PC, hence asking for it specifically).

    • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
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      3 days ago

      Well, I can kinda answer that: I’ve got a launch PS4 controller that I mostly use wired on my PC and it’s fine.

      If I use it wirelessly, it’ll still get about 5-6 hours, which basically means after 13 years it’s still right on spec for what it should be able to do.

      Not really something that’s probably worth worrying about unless you’ve got some absolutely shitty batteries.

      (Hell, I’ve still got some PS3 controllers that’ll do 3-4 hours, and they’re freaking ancient at this point.)

    • tal@lemmy.today
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      3 days ago

      someday the thing will fail and maybe cause electrical failure of the gamepad.

      Emphasis added, yeah this is among the reasons I’m asking.

      Ah, gotcha. Yeah, that’s a real thing. If a lithium battery sits around discharged for too long — and they’ll constantly self-discharge, so anything on a shelf will get there — it’ll never work again. I do kind of think that there are too many devices with non-removable batteries that are going to wind up dead at some point. Might be possible to open the thing up and replace the internal battery in a wireless gamepad, if it’s standardized. I don’t know what wireless gamepads typically use.

      That being said, if whatever one gets is an inexpensive gamepad, I mean, one option is to just throw it out and replace the thing at some point down the line when it stops working. Also solves other wear and tear problems…