- What happens when you take one of the most reviled
gaming controllers in history and you remake it in 2018?
Well, you get the Hyperkin Duke.
Today we'll compare and contrast it to the original
and tell you whether or not it's worth the 70 bucks.
Stay tuned.
(upbeat music)
Here it is, the Hyperkin Duke.
It is now available at GameStop and the Microsoft store
and I believe Amazon too, as well as overseas.
So we already reviewed this on WindowsCentral.com,
Jez Corden did an awesome deep dive into it.
Make sure you go read that.
I don't wanna go too much into the details here,
as you can go and check out what he has to say,
but I wanna talk a little bit about this controller.
So this came out in 2001, it was part of the original Xbox
and people absolutely hated it.
It's called the Duke, but it was also called
the Fatty at the time, which is absolutely hilarious.
And it was just too big for most people.
In fact it was so bad they later revised it
just a few months later to make a slimmed down version.
So what's new with this controller for 2018?
So it's obviously revised a little.
If you go and buy the original one, like we have here,
you can't actually use it with the Xbox or a Windows 10 PC.
This version you can, it does have now a removable cable
where you can attach it to your PC and just use it
like a regular controller or use it with Xbox.
Now I know you're saying why not wireless?
And it's a really good question.
As it turns out, Microsoft kinda controls that technology,
that is there are no third party controllers
that use the Xbox wireless system,
which is a little weird and unfortunate
as that would've truly made us a really unique device,
but yeah, you do have to use this wired all the time,
but at least you can replace that cable now.
The other massive change is gonna be that center button.
So on the original one it had this large Xbox logo
and it looked kind of okay, but it didn't do much.
Well they updated this time with a clever OLED version
and it actually shows the animation from
the original Xbox when it boots up.
As cool as it is though, I think there's a bit of
a missed opportunity here.
Hyperkin should create some third party software
which allows you to control that or maybe even
display your stats or something else.
It seems like kind of a lost opportunity
as after that screen boots up it really doesn't do much.
Other additions include the new shoulder buttons,
which were not included in the original version,
so you have those now.
They're not as good as the shoulder buttons
found on a true Xbox controller,
but they actually work pretty well.
The triggers are also updated,
so the original triggers had more of
a solid spring mechanism to them and they were
kinda hard and had resistance to them.
Didn't feel very good, these new ones are modern design,
so they feel much better and are much more responsive.
The buttons also have a little bit
of a tactile feel to them, a little bit more pointy,
but they click very well.
And the joysticks were also updated
to have more rubber grip on them.
Overall it feels very good.
So in case you're wondering how this actually feels,
it's actually kinda fun and there is a bit
of a learning curve when you go to use this,
for instance that Y button, it feels a little bit different
when you reach for it with your thumb.
That's partly because those buttons are on an angle
on the original version, whereas they're not
on a modern Xbox controller.
I do have to say though, I actually do enjoy using it,
despite the fact that it is rather huge,
it feels kinda nice.
I'm not saying you wanna necessarily use this
all the time, but I've been using it for PC gaming
for a while and it's actually kinda clever.
I really enjoy using those joysticks as they feel
very nice and they have nice height and depth to them
compared to the original controller.
As far as holding them for long times,
the new controller is actually significantly
heaver than the original, which is pretty funny.
It's already a massive controller, but you're looking
about 340 grams which is around 30 to 40 grams more
than the original controller, so that's not insignificant.
I didn't really find it too hard to handle
for a very long time, but your mileage may vary
and if you have tiny hands,
well you may steer clear of this.
But for $70 I think this is actually a pretty good buy.
The build quality is fantastic, I've had no issues
with my controller whatsoever and if you're very nostalgic
for Xbox history, and we've talked about that in the past,
that people do like to buy this stuff,
well this is an excellent purchase
and I think Hyperkin did an outstanding job.
It's also quite fun to see a joystick
that was so shamelessly disrespected back in 2001
brought back to life in 2018.
Goes to show you that we're living in amazing times.
So there's a quick look at the Hyperkin Duke controller.
Now if you want more information about this
make sure you go to Windows Central to read
our full review and let me know in comments
what other Xbox history you wanna see
brought back to life.
If you liked this video give us the thumbs up
and don't forget to subscribe.
Thanks for watching, take care everybody.