Some buttons — like the Xbox 360’s original D-pad — are just plain bad. But the transforming D-pad Microsoft introduced later on is proof that even bad buttons can eventually become good ...

After covering 8BitDo’s Pro 2 Controller last year, I genuinely thought that was probably the best third-party pad we were going to get for a while. Well, it looks like I was wrong about that.

The existing Xbox 360 d-pad exacerbates the problem if you’re tapping quickly (as most of us do). That’s been a bugaboo of mine since the New Xbox Experience launched in late 2008.

The D-pad. Microsoft actually designed the disc-based D-pad of the Xbox 360 controller for Street Fighter-style maneuvers. “The current disc we have on the 360 was meant to prioritize for sweeps ...