The most immediately noticeable difference is that Hyperkin’s product replaces the typical Xbox style of asymmetric joystick with the PlayStation’s horizontal layout. It also separates the D-pad (which is a single piece within the panel, but splits its cardinal directions so that each appears to be its own button), while the ABXY face buttons are spaced slightly apart. Where the DualSense’s touchpad resides, we have the Xbox Home, Menu, View and Share buttons, all rather cleverly combined. The LED ring around the home button echoes the lights running around the perimeter of the DualSense’s touchpad, though it’s actually a reflection of the regular Xbox controller, with the home button itself lit up.
The Rival Thumbsticks come with thumb caps that mirror the PS5’s, and an outer ring with a convex center dot, but a pair of standard Xbox concave caps are included. They go on and off easily, and can be mixed and matched, if you’re (oddly) so inclined.
There are two areas where this differs from both standard Xbox and PlayStation controllers in terms of inputs. The first is that there are two programmable back buttons, M1 and M2. By default, these duplicate the input of the A and B buttons, but holding down the mode button between them allows you to remap them. There are also physical button locks to prevent them from being used completely. The other is that while the competitor features a 3.5mm headphone jack like Microsoft’s official pad, it adds a built-in mute button, hidden in black between the joysticks – a nice little upgrade.
Strangely familiar
In use, the Rival looks… well, a lot like the PS5’s pad. The slightly wider grip fits comfortably in the hand, all inputs are accessible, and this symmetrical thumbstick is well within reach of all but the smallest hands. The micro-textured underside provides a solid grip that makes the Competitor feel particularly well-suited for long periods of play when combined with its 232-gram weight. This is all very familiar if you’re already a multi-format gamer, to the point where it sometimes strained my muscle memory a bit, sticking out my thumb to do the PlayStation’s touchpad job and finding only the Xbox’s system buttons.
Photo: Matt Kamen