Clancy Morgan/Business Insider
The Scuf Vantage gamepad for PlayStation 4.
- The PlayStation 4 is a great console, and its DualShock 4 gamepad is one of the best available.
- But there are certain competitive games that benefit from having a few more bells and whistles than the DualShock 4 offers - Battle Royale games like "Fortnite" and "Apex Legends" are high on that list.
- A gaming peripheral-maker named Scuf makes a $200 controller called the Vantage that offers a lot of those bells and whistles, but ultimately it fails on foundational issues.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
When Microsoft announced and released a $150 game controller in 2015, I scoffed.
Sure, it was clearly higher quality than the standard gamepad. And yes, it was modular, meaning you could swap out components of it and even straight up add buttons. But $150?
I'm not too proud to say that, after using the Xbox One Elite gamepad, I was sold. Not only is it a really good version of the Xbox One gamepad, but it's got some sweet additions that make it feel worthwhile.
Microsoft
The Xbox One Elite gamepad is expensive, no doubt, but it feels worth the price.
So when I heard about a $200 PlayStation 4 gamepad that offered many of the same benefits as the Xbox One Elite gamepad, I was pretty excited to try it.
Unfortunately, unlike the Xbox One Elite gamepad, the $200 Scuf Vantage controller for PlayStation 4 fell far short of my admittedly lofty expectations.
Here's why: