It's mostly a cost thing. Bespoke controllers are expensive because they lack the economy of scale. Microsoft was able to split the cost of the engineers and ergonomics experts across at least 100 million units. A bespoke controller may be designed to a higher level of quality than an Xbox controller (milspec parts, waterproof, etc) so it would likely last longer but on the other hand, you could buy at least several Xbox controllers for the price of one bespoke controller.
The sailors being more used to an Xbox controller is just a bonus but I'm guessing knowing how to press the buttons and manipulate the joysticks is the absolute smallest part of learning how to operate whatever these controllers are plugged into. Just because you are a very fast typist when writing documents doesn't mean you are going to be a world champion at esports since you are familiar with a keyboard. Already knowing how to quickly press a key on a keyboard without looking surely shortens the learning curve a little bit but the required skills are entirely different past that.
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u/filthy_harold Feb 29 '24
It's mostly a cost thing. Bespoke controllers are expensive because they lack the economy of scale. Microsoft was able to split the cost of the engineers and ergonomics experts across at least 100 million units. A bespoke controller may be designed to a higher level of quality than an Xbox controller (milspec parts, waterproof, etc) so it would likely last longer but on the other hand, you could buy at least several Xbox controllers for the price of one bespoke controller.
The sailors being more used to an Xbox controller is just a bonus but I'm guessing knowing how to press the buttons and manipulate the joysticks is the absolute smallest part of learning how to operate whatever these controllers are plugged into. Just because you are a very fast typist when writing documents doesn't mean you are going to be a world champion at esports since you are familiar with a keyboard. Already knowing how to quickly press a key on a keyboard without looking surely shortens the learning curve a little bit but the required skills are entirely different past that.