On the other hand, I don't think I've had a DS2 controller last me more than a couple of years, even with light use. I use My dual-shock 1 controllers for any game that is compatible with it, and they are still going strong.
Generics varied in quality vastly but never felt quite that sturdy I regret having to sell that PS2, specially seeing the current resurgence
The button switches between two modes of the analog joysticks, either to behave with their normal functionality, or to simply be a digital input (so just round all movement to either up/down/left/right). For PS2 games, you typically wouldn't want to do this. Instead, the functionality exists because the PS2 was backwards compatible with PS1 titles. The original PS1 controller didn't have analog sticks at all, just the D-Pad for navigation. After a few years (and the success of Nintendo's N64 analog controller) Sony released a revised version of the controller that included two joysticks, which their controllers still mimic to this day. However, those PS1 games released prior to the analog controller wouldn't always behave correctly if you tried to use an analog input scheme, so Sony added a mode to allow the Joysticks to function the same as the D-Pad, in case players preferred it.
Other fun fact, the analog controller was not the same as their more famous Dualshock controller. There was a short-lived PS1 Dual Analog controller which just added the joysticks. It only lasted a few months before Sony replaced it with one that supported rumble functionality (also after being inspired by the N64), this was the Dualshock.
(I couldn't read the article because the site was currently down for me, so apologies if this comment is off-topic, but hopefully relevant!)
Makes me wonder how expensive these were to make.
neilv•1h ago