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[Roshin]

I'm guessing you don't own a PS4, then, because Dualshock 4s have notoriously shitty build quality. It's really the only big flaw in an otherwise fantastic controller.

Two launch controllers here and one more recent anniversary one. All perfectly fine.

 

[Nappuccino]

Yep, consoles have a pretty slim profit margin, but the markup on accessories is huge. The bill of materials on current gen controller (perhaps excluding the Wii U GamePad) is probably under $20, and they're something that will sell throughout the console's lifespan.

A common mark up is 200%, so selling the controllers for 60 is about right, oddly.

In the last two generations, I haven't bought an extra controller. Thanks, single-player games.

 

[TheRook]

I think it's how people "treat" their hardware contributes to this.

I was the younger brother in my family and my older bro always told me not to mess up his SNES or Genesis Controllers when I was a kid. Overtime because of that, generally don't "Go HAM" on controllers. Doesn't matter if it was a handheld like the PSP or DSLite, or a console controller like the PS families or Nintendo controllers, I've never had a controller "die" on me.

However my very same older brother goes through controllers alot, he's on his 4th 360 controller and managed to wear out my PS3's DS3 controller as well. I'll admit that other factors come into play like he mostly plays Shooters while I'm more of a JRPG's and Racer type of gamer however, we both play action intensive games like Ninja Gaiden.

But from my experience with controllers, the more mechanisms they add to these controllers (i.e. moving parts) the more that can go wrong. But as someone who never needed to replace his controllers and only bought more so that other people can play, I think alot of it has to do with "how" people are gaming on their hardware.

Now I've replaced parts before (i.e. for a fightstic)k, but anyone who plays fighting games knows that buttons will eventually go out.