Now that the Xbox One has been out for over a year we're finally starting to see some amazing third party components and controllers hit the market. From the PowerA Mini Controllers to PDP's latest entry in its Rock Candy Series; the Rock Candy Xbox One Controller.
Offered as a cheaper alternative to many of the options on the market at a retail price of $24.99-$39.99 USD PDP has set the bar for what a lower priced controller should be.
Unboxing the controller (we received the Atomic Tango color) the first thing you notice about this controller is how light it is. It feels great in the hands, even with the wired connection. It comes boxed with a small manual, a $10 dollar PDP voucher card, a 4 ft long USB to micro-USB cord, and the controller itself.
The buttons on the controller all feel very springy and natural. A, B, X, and Y all respond quickly during games and the right and left bumpers and triggers replicate the Microsoft Xbox One Controller's almost perfectly in terms of weight and feel. There is a bit more “clicking” over all with button presses which is due to the cheaper parts used in its design. That doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the controller but it could get on the nerves of others. The D-Pad is also very well done for something of this price range and that was a huge surprise to me given that the D-Pad is usually the last thing on a companies mind when making a budget controller these days. It just goes to show you that PDP really cares about their products and customers who use them. The Rumble features are very well done and closely mimic the control/features of the Microsoft controller.
The only real flaw I noticed in the controller are the Left and Right sticks. They're made of hard plastic with no softer coating on the thumb grips. This makes for sore thumbs during extended play sessions. I also could not fit any of my Kontrol Freek sticks onto the controller itself. This was a minor annoyance but required some slight adjustment to my gameplay style as I had learned how to use the Kontrol Freek sticks over the past few months.
The controller also offers no option of headset connection. Any microphone/party chat functions have to be done via Kinect with this controller. Given the price point, I'm not surprised that this is the case however the feature would have been nice to have overall for those who purchased more expensive third party Xbox One headsets.
Overall PDP has really hit it out of the park again and set the bar very high for other companies to follow in its footsteps. A few minor annoyances aside, the Rock Candy Xbox One Controller is absolutely the one to get if you're looking for a budget controller. If this is the base point of PDP controllers, I cannot wait to see what their inevitable After Glow Xbox One Controller will be.