Thoughts on SteelSeries and the Stratus XL

Update

I’ve been communicating with SteelSeries about the issues described here, and they’re investigating

I received my Stratus XL earlier today. A full review will come eventually, but first, some thoughts. Lets start with the good news: the build quality of the controller is absolutely first-rate. Seriously, first-party level good. The analog sticks are solid, grippy, and well build. The triggers are high pressure. Heck, even the d-pad is decent, at least for an extra-large circular pad.

Sadly, when I actually connected the controller to the iPhone, I was met with the same lax quality I’ve grown to expect from SteelSeries. The analog sticks are completely non-functional, to start with. They don’t work in any games, they don’t show up in any testing apps, I can assume this is just a flaw with my unit, and I’ll be putting in an order for a replacement ASAP.

Far more unfortunate than the broken analogs is the lag. The story here is exactly the same as it is for the current Stratus: combining button presses and / or d-pad movement can cause both of them to interfere with each other and lag by up to a half second. This problem occurs on all iOS 8 devices, and has been independently confirmed by many developers and gamers. Some people are unaffected, but the problem is widespread enough to be concerning. I was hoping it was limited to the first Stratus controller, but no luck.

I really, really hope SteelSeries gets their act together in the quality control department. They have some first-rate designers coming up with some killer designs. Unfortunately, whoever is in charge of actually executing these designs seems to be doing a questionable job. The best designs in the world are only as good as the execution.

Even if the designs WERE executed well, whoever is in charge of writing firmware and software at SteelSeries isn’t exactly helping things. Lag like this is inexcusable on a second-generation product, especially after the multitude of people experiencing the exact same issue on version one. Furthermore, even if SteelSeries does issue a patch for the broken firmware on these controllers, the way SteelSeries updates device firmware is simply archaic. Mac users get potentially dangerous kernel extensions and zero uninstaller. Windows users get widespread reports that the updater doesn’t even work.

I was willing to give SteelSeries the benefit of the doubt for the first-generation product, but the fact these bugs, quality control problems, and software issues continue to exist is astounding to me. SteelSeries should be ashamed of themselves for having their name attached to these products. And Apple should think twice before selling these controllers in their stores.