Ever have one of those moments where you look at something and immediately feel repulsed? Perhaps for you it’s gum on the sidewalk, poorly maintained public toilets, bits of wet food left over when doing the dishes. These are all common triggers for me, and I’m not even especially uptight about matters of cleanliness (you should see the absolute state of my toys-to-life collection). However, the subject of Microsoft’s new Xbox sweepstakes competition, tied into the upcoming Sonic movie sequel, is so uniquely bizarre and stomach-churning in its concept that it just might have joined that elite pantheon of stuff that really, really turns me off. Plus, it’s fundamentally flawed from a design perspective. Great job all told, lads.
OK, I might be being a tad dramatic, but really – who thought of this? As the Xbox blog reveals, one lucky winner can not only bag themselves a themed Xbox Series X adorned with a gold ring, but a duo of character controllers. One for Sonic, one for Knuckles. The revolting gimmick? They’re furry. As in, they have actual hair on them. The official description reads as follows: “controllers with textured coatings reminiscent of the bristly texture of hedgehogs in the wild,” which is the kind of sentence I’d expect to see in the Book of Revelation after the words ‘and Lo, I beheld.’
There is no feasible way for me to catalog all the reasons why this is an unfathomably poor design choice on almost every conceivable level, but I’ll mention the obvious one: think of your average game controller. The way it inevitably gets sticky and sweaty through regular use over time, especially if you have kids pootling about the house. The way they acquire bits of gristle and grime through the years – and don’t you wrinkle your nose at me, you know I’m right. There’s no gamer out there that can truthfully disagree. The number of soiled GameCube and PS2 controllers worldwide must number into the thousands.
Now imagine that, coupled with a hairy coating on the controller. That, my bud, is a recipe for grade-A filth. You can’t exactly machine wash an expensive bit of tech, either, so you’re all but out of luck unless you’re a clean freak on an astronomical scale. This is all overlooking the fact that the controllers just look… off. They look like extraneous bits that fell off Cookie Monster and Elmo, which I don’t want any business handling, frankly.
How do I get my hands on this controller?
Anyway, now that I’ve spent most of the article ranting about the things, here are the details on how you can go about potentially winning ’em. Fans can enter “two sweepstakes for a chance to win the exclusive custom Xbox Series S and both the Sonic Blue and Knuckles Red Xbox Wireless Controllers by either (1) retweeting the official Xbox sweepstakes tweet and including the hashtag #XboxSonic2Sweepstakes, or (2) for fans in the US, by redeeming Microsoft Rewards points.” I’m no mathemetician, so I can’t run the numbers on the likelihood of the average punter winning these cursed artifacts, but for me, anything over nil is pushing it.
All joking aside, these are certainly unique bits of merch, and ones which, assuming they’re well-preserved and looked after, would make good display pieces and talking points. They’ll almost assuredly be worth something down the line, as they seem to be one-of-a-kind, so if you fancy owning this bonkers slice of Sonic promotional material, shoot your shot.
Incidentally, the Sonic movie sequel opens on April 8th; unless you’re a lucky Brit like me, in which case it’s due out on the 1st. Sorry, ‘Murican readers. You’ll have to dodge all Englishmen online for a week.
How about you? Will you be having a go? What’s your take on the *shudder* furry controllers? Let us know!
Via, Xbox Blog.
