Recently I picked up 8Bitdo's NES30 Pro bluetooth gamepad. I have a bunch of PC controllers but most of them like the XBox 360 controller are great for PC shooters and other games but not great for traditional platformers or retro games.
The NES30 advertises support for the PC, Mac, Android, iOS & more recently the Switch. With some research I found out that the NES30 supports iOS through iCade which is a pseduo-standard that began with the iCade for iPad where the controller acts like a keyboard and games that support the iCade respond to certain keyboard button presses. It's an interesting work around to Apple not having a controller standard at the time until they released MFi which is a new Apple certification standard for controllers. Because of this iCade support is limited to a handful of games and apparently 8Bitdo doesn't support it anymore because in the recent controller firmware they removed iCade support and added support for the Switch. I can understand why they did that and truth be told, you can rollback the firmware to get iCade support but you'd then lose support for the Switch. It would be nice to eventually buy one controller to work with all your devices but it seems Apple disallows this in the MFi licensing terms so, for now, it's not going to happen.
The NES30 pairs beautifully with my Mac, PC and Android devices and once setup works flawlessly. It's very light and feels great in the hand. The buttons and action really remind me of the original Nintendo controllers and the analog thumbsticks aren't too bad. I don't think i'd use the NES30 for a modern shooter but for the handful of platformers and retro games I played with it it worked really well.
The NES30 advertises support for the PC, Mac, Android, iOS & more recently the Switch. With some research I found out that the NES30 supports iOS through iCade which is a pseduo-standard that began with the iCade for iPad where the controller acts like a keyboard and games that support the iCade respond to certain keyboard button presses. It's an interesting work around to Apple not having a controller standard at the time until they released MFi which is a new Apple certification standard for controllers. Because of this iCade support is limited to a handful of games and apparently 8Bitdo doesn't support it anymore because in the recent controller firmware they removed iCade support and added support for the Switch. I can understand why they did that and truth be told, you can rollback the firmware to get iCade support but you'd then lose support for the Switch. It would be nice to eventually buy one controller to work with all your devices but it seems Apple disallows this in the MFi licensing terms so, for now, it's not going to happen.
The NES30 pairs beautifully with my Mac, PC and Android devices and once setup works flawlessly. It's very light and feels great in the hand. The buttons and action really remind me of the original Nintendo controllers and the analog thumbsticks aren't too bad. I don't think i'd use the NES30 for a modern shooter but for the handful of platformers and retro games I played with it it worked really well.
If you want to join this conversation you need to sign in.
Sign Up / Log In
I'm still torn on waiting for the SNES30 Pro or getting this.
Or maybe both :D
I definitely prefer the stacked shoulder buttons of the SNES30 Pro but I like the look of this one more. I guess I'll just wait and see how the reviews are for the SNES30 Pro.
Glad you like it and it feels right. The button action of the early systems is what stands out for me in your review-- nobody seems to have gotten that right until now.
I'd love to see if this is as beautiful in person as it is in the picture!
Check out some youtube reviews Adam-- it's not, not quite. But still quite nice. The lighting and framing in the pic above gives it a metallic look.
Yeah, it's not quite as glossy but does look good.