People who think you can't aim with a dual shock just aren't experienced enough. After you practice, it becomes second nature. Moving a thumbstick is no different than dragging a mouse. And before someone brings it up, a lot of hardcore FPS players turn off auto-aim features. It actually tends to be a hindrance in competitive gameplay.

I think it's just that PC gamers don't use their thumbs like console gamers do, so when they try to aim, they lack the thumb control that a console gamer has built up over many years of practice. Also, I think many PC gamers don't realize the subtleties of the thumbsticks, and the huge range speed and force differences you can give as input. Because a lot of PC games have tended to treat sticks as digital 'all or nothing' inputs.

So when PC gamers try to use a thumbstick like a mouse, they get bad results. The mouse works like a pointer, even in an FPS. But a thumbstick controls both the speed and the direction of the aiming. So a PC gamer will push both thumbsticks all the way, and end up running at full speed, while doing a super fast aim in a random direction. Then they pass it off as clumbsy and inaccurate. Don't try to use a screw driver like a hammer.

On a sidenote, I remember back when WASD + Mouselook was just an unofficial user key mapping for the first full 3D FPS games, and most people found it awkward, but eventually stuck to it after practicing and getting used to it.

^^ That's true, but there is still one big difference between moving a thumbstick and dragging a mouse -- time.

A mouse is an absolute input with (practically) no range on the input that can be given per 'tick'. It's default state is at rest, and only generates inputs when it is moved to new locations. e.g. it can move from (100,234) to (23,2000) in one message.
A stick is a relative input with a normalized range. When it is moved to a location and held there, it continually generates messages with that position, and has a 'spring' to return it to zero.

When controlling a FPS camera the two necessarily have to behave pretty differently. Let's say the player is looking at one orientation, and wishes to turn to another orientation:
* with the mouse, there is always an input vector that will solve that wish in a single message. Assuming no mouse acceleration, a player's muscle memory allows them to know the exact distance that they should move the mouse in a single frame to achieve that wish. This is what allows you to be shooting someone in the back one frame, and have been 180 no-scoped by them on the next frame...
* with the stick, there is only an input vector that will solve that wish in a single frame if the difference in angle is less than [font=courier new,courier,monospace]1.0 (max input) * maxRotationSpeed * deltaTime[/font]. There is almost certainly no way to indicate that you want to turn exactly 179.3 degrees in a single frame, from an idle starting position (because maxRotationPerFrame is usually much less than 180 degrees).

I'm of the opinion that FPS games where you can spin 180 in a single frame aren't very fun, so this doesn't bother me... but in a professional game of Counter-Strike, a pro game-pad player would be at a huge disadvantage compared to a pro mouse player.

The WiiU to return nintendo to hardcore market? You must be jocking.
Without even knowing the hardware but simply "guess" it I can tell for sure this is just another Wii. And I've been extremely dissatisfied with my Wii. They're never going to see any money from me again.

Personally I like the Halo franchise. Most games I've seen for PS3 didn't impress me, besides a few notable exceptions. So I'd get a ... nothing! I'll get a new video card instead, my TV is like 12 years old!

Some games have solved that by having a 180 turn button.

Counter Strike would be a case where the game was designed around the subtleties of the mouse, and not the subtleties of the gamepad. You can say the same in reverse. Games that take advantage of the gamepad's advantages suffer greatly on a WASD + Mouselook setup. Especially when it comes to controlling subtle character movements. Splinter Cell and GTA really suffer with all or nothing WASD. Splinter Cell used the mouse wheel to try and control movement speed. What a disaster.

Mouselook FPS games (especially earlier ones) tended to treat your cross hair like the hand of god. You didn't so much aim a gun as you just pointed at something and clicked. It's accurate pointing, but I don't find it to be an accurate experience or representation.

In GTA games, it's meant to be hard to ride on the back of someone else's motorcycle or getaway car, and win a gun battle with a bunch of other vehicles moving at high speed. On the PC ports, you just point the cursor at their heads and 1 shot kill them.

I find it really hard to drive cars in my PC versions of GTA. Both steering and gas are all or nothing, and I have to remember to keep pressing and releasing both to try and maintain control. On the gamepad, the buttons and the steering and analog and pressure based, so it's easy. My speed is controlled by how far down I press the button. (that's why this current gen moved the gas and brake to the triggers, because the face buttons are no longer analog like last gen!).

Unfortunately, playing with a gamepad on the PC versions is no better, because they treat it as a simple key remapping. Odd, because they had already been on PS2 and Xbox with very good gamepad handling. I guess because there are no standards for PC controllers they have to leave it completely generic.

Buy a gaming PC.

Not joking. You get almost all the games that are released on consoles (and even if you buy a ps3/xbox there will always be exclusives to either system), plus you get heaps of free games, steam sales, etc.

If you want to play FPS/RTS, you have a better control scheme*. For anything more actiony, just get a 360 controller. I sometimes use both (currently playing Sleeping Dogs and switch between controller for driving/fighting and mouse for shooting)

You can play at a desk or on a HDTV (see Steams Big Picture Mode).

The games you buy now will look better. Sleeping Dogs, for instance, looks way better on PC.

When the 720/ps4/whatever comes out in a year or two, your pc will be more than likely be able to run those games too.

Really the only thing you're missing out on is kinnect/move and I've yet to see wither offer a compelling gaming experience.

[size=2]* sorry, but anyone who thinks playing an fps is better with a controller is deluded. Microsoft did some research a few years ago with a view to allowing xbox and pc gamers to play together. The pc players annihilated the people playing with controllers, even with a huge skill gap (i.e. pro xbox players vs average pc gamers). I'm not saying mouse is always better. IMO it sucks for driving and fighting games.

I believe Halo popularized not treating grenades and melee attacks simply as different guns, because pure shooting gameplay would have been pretty bad with console controls. So I think it's interesting because I think FPS on console led to some good gameplay innovation that found its way into the entire market because aiming is harder.

[quote name='Hodgman' timestamp='1352536753' post='4999583']
A mouse is an absolute input with (practically) no range on the input that can be given per 'tick'. It's default state is at rest, and only generates inputs when it is moved to new locations. e.g. it can move from (100,234) to (23,2000) in one message.

That does not make sense to me...at all. Isn't my pointer/aim position being tracked at all times? What's the point of those hardcore "gaming" mouses then?[/quote]Hardcore gaming mice have a very high polling rate, e.g. they sample the mouse's location at 1000Hz, or once per millisecond. However, the game still only samples this information usually once per frame, e.g. 60Hz, or once per 17 milliseconds.
The advantage of having your hardware polling faster than 60Hz is so that when the game does read the mouse location, it's got the most up-to-date information possible -- e.g. if the mouse hardware only sampled at the same rate as the game, e.g. 60Hz, and the game update happened to run 1ms ahead of the mouse hardware update, it could introduce 1 frame of input latency:
*1ms mouse hardware update - Send Message #1: no movement
*15ms user moves mouse 2 pixels left
*17ms game update - Recieve Message #1: no movement
*18ms mouse hardware update - Send Message #2: 2 pixels left
*19ms user moves mouse 5 pixels right
*33ms game update - Recieve Message #2: 2 pixels leftAs a decent starting point, a good mouse should sample it's position at twice the game's framerate -- even though the game only samples the mouse position once per frame!

To me, you made the mouse movement sound like a car going from 0 to 100MPH in an instant. While a gamepad movement(and any other input device?) not capable and behaving differently.[/quote]Just in theory in the semantics of the messages.
e.g. Say I'm writing an aim-bot for a FPS, and as quickly as possible I want to send messages to the game to make the player turn to face another player's head.
If it's a mouse-based one, there is always a single message that can encode the command of "turn to face this exact angle" -- the mouse is basically setting the player's orientation.
If it's a game-pad based one, then the bot may have to send a message telling the game to start rotating (hold the stick at some precise angle), then wait several frames for the game to rotate the camera, then send a message telling it to stop (move the stick back to the center) -- the pad is basically setting the player's rotational velocity.
i.e. the former is [font=courier new,courier,monospace]angle += input[/font], and the latter is [font=courier new,courier,monospace]angle += clamp(input,-1,1) * constant * deltaTime[/font].
With the mouse, [font=courier new,courier,monospace]z = y + x[/font] can always be solved for [font=courier new,courier,monospace]x[/font], so the aimbot can always aim perfectly every frame. With the pad [font=courier new,courier,monospace]z = y + x * c * dt; 1 >= x >= -1[/font] can't necessarily be solved for [font=courier new,courier,monospace]x[/font] -- if [font=courier new,courier,monospace]1*c*dt[/font] is smaller than the amount of turning you wish to perform next frame, then the aim-bot will have to perform the turning maneuver over several frames.

If you can make a gaming PC for less than the price of an xbox 360 that performs better I will gladly accept this as an alternative.

Money not being an issue I'd agree, but ignoring money isn't a luxury everyone has.

If your budget is that tight, then yes, a console will be cheaper in the short term. Right now, though the current gen in nearing end of life, so buying an xbox/ps3 now means you won't be able to play new releases in 2 or 3 years without buying a whole new console. With a PC you could upgrade for much less than that, plus you're getting a lot more computer for your money. Factor in cheaper games (steam sales etc) and the difference really isn't that big.

I like controllers more. I know I don't do as well as competitive gamers on either control scheme, but I never enjoyed FPS's as much with a mouse and keyboard as I do with a controller. That said, this argument is like saying, "anybody who thinks olympic swimmers are faster than olympic runners is deluded." It avoids the important aspect that skill differential between players on similar platforms is more important than what you use to control your game; I have yet to see a convincing case in that regard that either is better.

There's nothing stopping you using a controller on a PC. A lot of games actually come with pretty decent x360 controller support out of the box.

As for your swimming analogy, it's more accurate than you realise. Except using a controller in a fps is like swimming on a track. Equally, using a mouse/kb for a fighting game is like trying to run in the pool.

I find aiming with a controller frustrating, like trying to type with mittens on. If you enjoy that fine, but one is clearly more optimal than the other.