Why does it seem as if the market has no place for trackballs, even though they're officially better than analog sticks?
Why does it seem as if the market has no place for trackballs, even though they're officially better than analog sticks?
Carson Barnes
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Carson Perez
Sticks return to neutral.
Ayden Long
Trackballs are gay
Mason Barnes
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Carter Stewart
>try to turn right
>accidentally flick trackball
>youtube.com
John Powell
>muh Marble Madness
Grayson Lewis
The steam controller can emulate trackballs if you're into that.
Ian Barnes
So? If you're playing a shooter how often do you kill someone in your neutral position?
Camden Miller
That's the beauty of trackballs, they don't need to return to neutral.
William Hughes
Not to mention you can just stop a trackball on a dime while a stick will keep going while reverting to neutral. Fuck I wish I could just design a controller.
Benjamin Clark
...
Luis Ross
Returning to neutral is irrelevant. Trying to play Terraria with that controller feature over the other mode is bullshit.
Michael Allen
Wouldn't that have acceleration?
Easton Wilson
The fuck does this even mean?
In a shooter if you let go of the stick, your aiming just stops. It doesn't snap back to the horizon.
Thomas Martin
Only as much as you want, the Steam controller is insanely configurable.
The Steam Controller is the answer for why there's no room for trackballs, by comparison they're just too expensive and the hardware is more prone to problems than just emulating it with software.
Mason Morales
You can turn it off completely. It does the trackball thing with the touchpads by default and it works pretty well.
Caleb Johnson
Trackballs are fucking stupid and don't feel right, that's why.
Jaxon Smith
git gud
Leo Diaz
isn't that the opposite of the point he made?
Jackson Wood
Trackball controllers are / would be the same price. They also wouldn't have to get special trackpad designs.
Tyler Reyes
The trackpad is cheaper because there are fewer moving parts and in the Steam controllers case you get more benefit of the scale of orders from having two in every controller.
Plus as I said they don't have issues from dust or fibers building up in the trackball's socket. Allowing for a way to clean that out also adds cost.
Dominic Bailey
>The trackpad is cheaper because there are fewer moving parts
The only moving part in a trackball is the ball. The sensor is static.
Allowing for a way to clean it is as simple as having the trackball sit on top of the controller.
Grayson Allen
So you confirm that it has more moving parts and it needs a mechanism or a design that adds cost.
Also I think you're forgetting that you need some kind of bearings so that it can roll smoothly and spin when you flick it. Those also need to be able to move.
Also consider shipping costs. For a trackball to work well it needs to be heavy so that it will have some intertia. In bulk those costs add up and that will be passed along to the customer.
Valve talks all about this in a presentation they gave about the Steam Controller several years ago.
Mason James
>They also wouldn't have to get special trackpad designs.
Not sure what you mean.
Jaxson Phillips
>design that adds cost
The ball itself is probably cheaper than unique trackpads has already been posted. It's within a tiny price range of a bunch of plastic anyway.
>it needs bearings
It doesn't.
>a trackball has to be heavy and have inertia
Negative.
Justin Hernandez
A lightweight trackball that doesn't roll well isn't going to be a very good alternative to a mouse, but I guess anything is better than a analog stick.