NYKO Technologies 80650 Airflow Ex Pc Game Controller

OK. So if you have read many other critical reviews of this gamepad you know some of the shortcommings. Such as the d-pad not being the best to the number buttons being different than "normal". I'll tell you this, if you don't care about having a rumble feature and don't mind programming the buttons to meet specific game requirements this is absolutely the best controller you will find for the price (I paid $11.99 each and bought 3 to qualify for free shipping). I play mostly Nintendo emulators on our PC, mostly Project 64 for N64, with my children and these controllers are a couple orders of magnitude better than the el cheapo USB controllers I originally bought for the PC cause I'm, well, frugal. And I wasn't about to spend a lot of dough on controllers for sticky little kid hands to destroy. Responsive, good feel even in tiny 7 year old hands (my daughter, not me), and you can turn the fan off which is good because I find the noise quite annoying. The kids think it's cool though. I'll have to wait and see about long-term durability. But for 12 bones what do you expect? They seem solid and there is no creaking when you torque them while getting crazy during a game. They are a little light for me since I'm used to heavier gamepads with rumble feature but that's not enough for me to rescind my best cheapo USB PC contoller ranking for this great controller. Now if I could just get my Nyko Wii contollers to work correctly all the time.....

For the price, this really isn't a bad controller. The analog sticks and buttons all work well, and the fan is a nifty feature to have sometimes. I really only have 2 problems with this controller:1) Compatibility. I can't seem to get this to work with a lot of modern games2) The D-pad. I configured the movement in Snes9x (a super nintendo emulator) to the D-pad and tried to play super metroid, and it was completely unplayable. It has a ridiculously difficult time correctly reading diagonal D-pad presses. Then I tried to go for something simpler that only used 4-directional D-pad functionality, Megaman X, and it was still unmanageable - even only working with the simple 4 directional commands the D-pad was far too unresponsible to be adequate for gameplay.3) This could be a problem with the emulator, but in Project64 I'm having an impossible time getting the analog stick's full range to be utilized. There'll be a huge dead zone along the outer edges of the stick's range, meaning that full presses are very easy to do, but gameplay that requires sensitive analog movement (zelda shooting gallery, super mario 64 platforming etc.) becomes ridiculously difficult. I've ordered an xbox 360 controller for windows, so I'll use that and see if the problem persists and update this review with the results.But, for the most part it's a good controller for the price. If amazon allowed more detailed reviews, I would have given this 3.5 / 5 stars.

Having used prior model, 80610, for a few years, I was surprised when the Left Joystick began acting up, at first, intermittently in 2010.  NYKO TECHNOLOGIES 80610 Airflow Pc Game Controller When I releae the left joystick, its springs return it to "center" position, which should be neutral. It should not be sending any keyboard commands. It is mapped to WASD, where upward would be W, and downward would be S. Upon starting, neutral position emits no signal. I press upward, and oddly, it emits no signal. I press downward and get S, but when I release, it emits W, and repeats W, all the time it is in the Neutral, Center position. This gamepad never behaved this way, for the last 3 years, so I thought it must be a worn out. I purchased a Logitech, and there is no problem, using the same Pinnacle Game Profiler [legal, registered] utility software.  Logitech Rumblepad 2 Vibration Feedback Gamepad I purchased the newer Nyko 80650, and gets the same malicious failure.  NYKO TECHNOLOGIES 80650 Airflow Ex Pc Game Controller There must be something different either about Windows XP, for 2010. Or there may be some malicious computer file that is targetting Nyko AirFlo hardware. I even mapped the settings to the included, NYKO gamepad-mapping software. Even with that different software, the Nyko 80650 exhibits the excact same bug. Even when I set the Left Joystick to be the "Mouse" it then sends the mouse pointer to the top of the Windows Desktop, and holds it there, repeating the upward-movement command. Nyko has a wonderful game controller. It fits Large, american hands, very well. Some vagabond apparently is trying to ruin this exceptionally-good product. It must surely be extortion, driving whatever is messing up the Left joysticks.The Logitech works but has an obtrusive "trigger guard" that gets in the way of Large american hands.

I see it now listed for $10.00 and I guess, without looking, I payed nearly the same but regardless the controller is useless to me. For the price, I won't bother with returning it as it might come in handy for some meanial use in the future, besides the hand cooler works! By useless I mean that whether I program me control for either one of the joysticks or pads it will give up transmitting signals whenever it wants. For example; in GTR if I'm holding a right turn it will suddenly give up turning and go straight and intermittingly go back to right or not at all. I've tried reassigning the steering to a joystick with the same results. I'm now on the hunt for something better...

This is a fantastic buy. Works with many types of games, is very comfortable in the hand with easy-to-reach buttons, and is easy to install, with a USB connection and a disk to install the software. The fan. The fan! For anyone who may be in doubt, the fan does work, and the extremity of the two phases of fan (high and low) are evident upon using it. And don't worry, you can turn it off when it's not needed. It does make a slight noise, understandably, but it's not so loud as to have the need to turn your game up. An amazing buy for any PC gamer in a variety of climates. (I now have three of them for when friends visit, they're just so great in quality, in my opinion.)

You can map it to keystrokes with the software supplied on the driver CD, it's easy to set up, very well packaged and solid, designed with a lot of care and attention and the fan feature, instead of being a novel extra is a really nice sensation when you've been mashing for a while.There is one downside to this product and that is the D-pad which is overly sensitive, (you have to push left or right really accurately in the center or it'll register as diagonally up or down) and a real thumb grinder. I had a blister after 10 minutes of Street Fighter and had to instead transfer the load to the tip of my thumb. It's a shame really, I chose this product because it didn't have one of those circular D-pads which is prone to snapping but this one is a bit too harsh.

Full credit to the seller, the product arrived promptly, much earlier than expected.No credit to the manufacturer, I should have read more of the reviews before I purchased.The 'hat' controller cannot do up or down without adding a left or right press unless you are very careful, which is impossible when playing any game. In my opinion this makes the product unuseable.

I bought this controller and it arrived before the estimated time! I was very happy with it. I love the fan its a little noisy but still a pc game makes much more noise so i cant relly hear it when im playing with something. Very comfortable and looks nice. There wasnt any problem with it on Windows 7 I just connected it and it updated itself from the windows update centre in 1-2 minits and it was ready to use! Try it if you looking for a controller it worths its price.

Really Fun Controller for those who sweat a lot how ever its not the most supported controller in the world and its not the most comfortable as to put the fan inside the controller they had to make it really big and heavy.