Of all the lower-cost, pick-up-and-play controllers I tested for the Nintendo Switch 2, 8BitDo’s $60 Ultimate 2 easily felt the best in hand. At a steep discount from Nintendo’s now-$90 Switch 2 Pro Controller, it’s an easy recommendation. What else do you need? When we take a step up and look at the $70 Pro 3 wireless controller, we should consider just what we gain and what we’re still missing. No, unfortunately you can’t wake the Switch 2 from sleep with the Pro 3. What you get instead is one of the best-feeling gamepads with the latest stick, trigger, and button technology that neither Nintendo nor any other major console maker still dares to touch.
8BitDo Pro 3 Controller
The 8BitDo Pro 3 controller is great for Switch or PC, and it’s one of the few you can change the button layout for your preferred system.
Pros
- Swappable buttons
- TMR joysticks feel great
- Excellent ergonomics and responsiveness
Cons
- 8BitDo Ultimate Software needs work
- Can’t wake up Switch 2
As much as I may enjoy the modern PS5 DualSense controller, I wonder what could have been if Sony had kept iterating on its older DualShock design. 8BitDo’s Pro 3 tells us there was so much more to give. The peripheral maker’s Pro series controllers bear a look that somehow combines the DualShock’s thumbstick layout with an old-school, flat-bodied SNES gamepad. If its squishy start and select buttons don’t spark nostalgia, I don’t know what would. The 8BitDo Pro 3 has twin arms that fit adult-sized hands better than any old PlayStation controller. And just like the 8BitDo Pro 2 from 2021, you can get the gamepad in a Famicon-style off-white, a calming GameCube purple, or a PlayStation gray, but now it comes with an Ultimate 2-style dock, which doubles as a charging mount and easy 2.4GHz connection port for playing on PC, Mac, or Steam Deck.
Any controller that wants to call itself “pro” needs a 2.4GHz connection for lower latency. Back buttons and a toggle switch to clicky “haptic” triggers are now so standard it’s hard to go back to a basic Xbox controller. But you’re not reaching for a company like 8BitDo first if you want to outperform opponents in Call of Duty. Instead, the 8BitDo Pro 3 operates as a switch hitter between Nintendo’s Switch and Switch 2, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android. Really important to note: the Pro 3 doesn’t connect with PlayStation or Xbox consoles. The Pro 3’s A, B, X, and Y face buttons are all magnetic. The controller comes with a small rubber doohickey tool with a magnet you use to swap your buttons around however you choose. This means you can use the 8BitDo Pro 3 in both Nintendo Switch or Xbox layouts without having to rely purely on muscle memory. The Pro 3 isn’t nearly as modular as the $200 Turtle Beach Victrix Pro BFG, which lets you completely reconfigure the controller layout with magnetic modules, but for $70 there are few controllers that are nearly as customizable.
The removal tool and extra buttons are found in the bottom hatch of the charging mount. Removing the buttons simply requires you to press the suction cup to each switch, then tug them out one at a time. With the new buttons reseated, I wasn’t able to pry them out with my fingernails no matter how hard I dug. What’s more, you can also remove the thumbstick caps. 8BitDo included two ball caps like you might find on a Japanese-style arcade stick. You need a fair bit of finger strength to release and attach the thumbstick caps, but once they were on, I didn’t feel any amount of loose rocking on either the regular or arcade attachments. I would honestly be amazed if anybody used these for anything, let alone fighting games, but they look extra cute jutting out of the controller, as if combining three eras of gaming into one input device.
Compared to the Hall effect joysticks on the last-gen Pro 2 controller, the Pro 3 uses TMR, or tunnelling magnetoresistance sticks. Hall effect uses a magnetic field to detect the stick’s orientation. These sticks are far more resistant to the inevitable drift caused by older designs with more contact points. TMR is more of an evolution of Hall effect, though so few controllers are making use of the technology, and promises to be more accurate than Hall effect while consuming much less power. What all this means in practice is the Pro 3 should last longer, both in terms of battery life and long-term use. The controller houses a 1,000mAh battery, which is technically less than what you’ll find on controllers like the PlayStation DualSense. Sony’s PS5 controller normally lasts little more than three to four hours, at best. The 8BitDo Pro 3 powered through a three-hour session of Switch 2 gaming plus several more hours of tests on PC before the battery indicator turned red. The addition of the charging dock means you shouldn’t have to worry much about running out of juice, so long as you keep it plugged in and close by.
What matters more than the joystick technology is how the sticks actually feel on your thumbs. They’re more stiff than some early, twig-like Hall effect joysticks. Each snaps back to center without a twinge of accidental input you get on cheaper controllers, which tend to “rubber band” when released. In games on Switch 2 like Donkey Kong Bananza, running around feels effortless and snappy. If you plan to take this controller into Call of Duty multiplayer, just know there are other high-end controllers that may offer more for truly competitive gaming.
The D-pad and Hall-effect triggers are similarly exemplary. Every direction on the D-pad feels snappy, and I didn’t have any issue with missed inputs depending on where I hit the buttons. The L2 and R2 buttons include a switch to change from clicky triggers to analog triggers. For the sake of Switch games, they feel even better than the Switch 2 Pro controller. Its six-axis gyro controls are just as precise as Nintendo’s $90 Pro device and the 8BitDo Ultimate 2 gamepad. The dock uses USB-C and includes the USB-C 2.4GHz dongle inside. You don’t even need to remove the dongle from the dock for faster connection speeds, making playing on PC seamless. If you plan to use a 2.4GHz connection on Switch, you can enable the option if you hold the select and LB buttons for a few seconds, but it makes the experience worse since doing so disables motion controls and rumble. If you’re using it for Switch, you’ll inevitably opt for Bluetooth, and you’ll still be able to use the controller from far away. The stated distance is 10 meters, and I could still connect to a Switch 2 on the other side of my apartment through several walls and doors.
The rest of the buttons have an oomph and a clickiness that may turn off some people who don’t want to annoy their partner reading beside them on the couch, but I’m a gamer who prefers to feel every button press. The 8BitDo Pro 3 is every bit the high-end controller it claims to be, except for its software. The “8BitDo Ultimate Software” is rudimentary but useful for setting dead zones on the sticks or mapping your buttons on up to three profiles accessible from a button between the two thumbsticks. However, installing the software and getting it connected to the controller on PC or mobile can be a pain.
Just like with the Pro 2, it’s again disappointing there’s no version of the controller compatible with either Xbox or PlayStation. The Rare 40th Anniversary Ultimate 3 is 8BitDo’s first Xbox wireless controller, so there may be hope for future console-specific versions. If I had any more options, this controller could easily be my go-to for both Switch 2 and PC. But until 8BitDo finds a way to help it wake the Switch 2, it can’t truly be my one and only.
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