8BitDo Arcade Controller Pro

8BitDo's Arcade Controller Pro is up for pre-order at $119.99 and ships November 30. It is the company's second button-only arcade controller, built for fighting game players who have already given up on the joystick.

The changes from the original Arcade Controller, which starts at $89.99, are all about precision and endurance. Buttons are smaller and set closer together, there are more programmable inputs, and a 1.47-inch display handles input monitoring, custom button mapping and RGB lighting. None of that is decorative. A fighting game controller lives or dies on whether the player can see what they just pressed, and a screen that confirms inputs in real time is a genuine answer to a genuine complaint.

The wrist rest is the more interesting decision. It attaches magnetically to the bottom of the device, and prying it open reveals five extra button caps, which turns a comfort accessory into a storage compartment. Long sessions on a leverless board put sustained strain on the wrist in a way a stick does not, so the rest is not an afterthought.

Battery life has also moved. The Pro carries a 3,000mAh battery, a step up from what the original offered, and recharges fully in four hours. For a device meant to survive a tournament day without a cable trailing off the table, that capacity is the specification that matters more than the RGB.

Thirty dollars over the original buys a screen, a bigger battery and a wrist rest with somewhere to put spare parts. It comes in two colourways, N Edition and White, which is the one piece of the design that has nothing to do with competitive play.