For years now, gamers have been saying that the PSP's Achilles' heel was the single circle pad. Sony is on the verge of releasing the PS Vita, which sports dual thumbsticks. And gamers are still bitching.
A Japanese gamer checked out the Vita at an in-store promotion noting that there is a severe space dearth between the buttons and the right thumbstick—ditto, for the left.
In the above photo, you can see the comparison between the the thumbstick and the buttons on a console controle (here, third party; middle image), and the same on the PS Vita.
The Japanese internet was awash with people predicting the Vita's doom, while others said these were simply fat thumbs.
One commenter cleverly pointed out the obvious: There's ain't much space between the buttons on the DualShock 3, the PS3's controller, and the right thumbstick.
In my play experience (and Luke's, for that matter), I don't ever remember the thumbsticks getting in the way or their proximity to the face buttons being a problem.
But look at that DualShock 3 layout. How will we ever play the PS3?! That thumbstick is so close!
VITAのボタン干渉問題がマジだった [オレ的ゲーム速報]
You can contact Brian Ashcraft, the author of this post, at bashcraft@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.