PCE 2.4g vs. PC Engine Mini Controller - Battle of the New PC Engine Controllers

The PC Engine has had something of a reemergence in the past few years. In 2019 Konami announced the PC Engine Mini and TurboGrafx-16 Mini consoles and miraculously released it in 2020. Also in 2020 8bitdo released their PCE 2.4g Wireless Gamepads and Analogue announced the availability of the Analogue Duo, an FPGA console designed to play the original HuCard and CD games. Having acquired both a controller which was sold for the PC Engine Mini console and the 8bitdo PCE 2.4g controller, I can give an opinion on their strengths and weaknesses.

Hori PC Engine Mini Controllers

Konami owns the intellectual property of Hudson Soft, which had originally designed the PC Engine console with NEC back in the mid-to-late 1980s. Hudson and NEC sold the console in North America as the TurboGrafx-16. They also cosmetically refreshed the white "PC Engine" with the gray "PC Engine CoreGrafx" in late 1989 (and swapped RF output for AV output). 

In 2020 Konami released their PC Engine emulation console in three variants, the PC Engine Mini, the TurboGrafx-16 Mini and the CoreGrafx Mini, each resembling a scaled down version of the respective original console. Each Mini console had two USB ports for controllers and came with one controller. Konami also released an official USB hub to serve as a multitap, resembling the original PC Engine multitap. Finally, Konami also sold standalone controllers to allow more people to play with authentic looking controllers.

The controllers are intended to mimic the originals both in form and function. Hori designed them the controllers and Hori has been designing controllers since the 1980s. It has designed controllers for the original PC Engine. Fortunately, while the mini consoles themselves are smaller than their original inspirations, the mini controllers are not proportionally resized. These controllers have turbo switches with three turbo levels, off, slow and fast. The USB cable is approximately 10.5 feet long, which is unusually generous for a Japanese-designed console. Hori learned from the criticisms of the NES Classic Mini controllers' absurdly short cable length.

8bitdo PCE 2.4G Controllers

8bitdo's PC Engine-mimicking wireless controller lineup takes the same approach as Konami's mini consoles. It has released three controllers, the PCE 2.4G, PCE Core 2.4G and TG16 2.4G, each identical in function but stylized to resemble their respective console's controllers. They communicate either through a wired microUSB cable or their included 2.4G USB dongle. 8bitdo officially claims compatibility with the three mini consoles as well as the Analogue Duo, the Nintendo Switch (when docked) and Windows 10 PCs. 

If you compared the PCE 2.4G to the N30 2.4G, you might be forgiven for thinking that the former is just a cosmetic and more comfortable to hold variant of the latter, but that is not the case. 8bitdo does not offer a variant of the N30 with a USB dongle, only an original controller dongle or an NES Classic Mini dongle. While the buttons are the same in number and, except for the menu button, placement, there are two elements of the PCE 2.4G that distinguishes it from the N30. 

First, the 2.4G protocol is not compatible with that of the original controller dongle N30, SN30 or M30s. You cannot pair a PCE 2.4G controller to one of these original controller dongles, I have tried. For the same reason you cannot use a N30, SN30 or M30 with the USB dongle which comes with the PCE 2.4G. The 2.4G dongle for the 8bitdo Arcade Stick may be compatible with the PCE 2.4G, but I have not tried to pair my PCE 2.4G controller to my Arcade Stick's dongle or vice versa. The PCE 2.4G and Arcade Stick describe a re-pairing procedure in their manuals.

Second, unlike the N30, the level of turbo provided by the dedicated turbo buttons can be changed. The user has to hold down Select I & II for five seconds. You can choose between 10x/second, 15x/second and 20x/second. The blue LED will blink once, twice or three times to indicate the level of turbo set, with higher levels blinking more times. If the controller is powered down, it will resume to the default turbo (10x/second). You also power the PCE 2.4G controller on pressing the menu button instead of the start button as on the N30.

Controller Comparison

Both controllers feel like quality products.  The plastic of both have matte finishes, with the 8bitdo feeling slightly coarser in texture than the Hori. The buttons of the 8bitdo have a bit more snap than the Hori, but Hori does not feel mushy. While the 8bitdo is slightly smaller than the Hori, due to the charging battery inside the 8bitdo, the weight of each is similar and the D-pad and button sizes are also about the same. 

The rechargeable Li-on battery in the 8bitdo controller is rated for 180mAh and 18 hours of play time is claimed. My own personal experience with the battery life of the 8bitdo 2.4G controllers is excellent generally and the 8bitdo PCE 2.4G controller is no exception. I cannot say I have noticed dropped inputs when using the 2.4G dongle due to the dongle losing pairing with the controller.

It is obvious that the Hori controller is closer to the original design of the PC Engine controllers, which usually had turbo switches. (The original white PC Engine console came with non-Turbo controllers, but there were official white NEC Turbo Pad controller with turbo switches available as a separate purchase.) The independent turbo switches provide the ability to use different turbo levels for each button or to set one button to use turbo (typically Button II) and the other not to use turbo (typically Button I).

The 8bitdo dedicated turbo button approach does not share the two advantages of turbo switches, the ability to switch the turbo level quickly and the ease of using turbo for one button but not the other. You can use Button II Turbo with Button I Non-Turbo, but that means your thumb is also going to straddling Button II Non-Turbo and Button I Turbo.

I used to believe that the dedicated button approach was objectively inferior and a cheap design that should have died with the cheap Famiclones which introduced them, today I have a more nuanced take. Turbo switches are mechanical parts which can wear or or get dirty and fail to make good contact. When they do, their ability to make the electrical contact to complete the button circuit fails and the result is a dead button. NEC's original controllers had the turbo switches make contact with two points on the PCB with small metal prongs. The Hori PC Commander, which is their original six button PC Engine controller, uses small switches housed in metal enclosures, but they can still get dirty and are harder to clean because they are so small.

I have experienced issues with dead buttons on original controllers because the prongs on the turbo switches were no longer making good contact with the PCB due to age, even when the turbo was off. The Hori controllers are designed in the same way and may fail at some point. 8bitdo's controller four action buttons use the same membrane, so they will not fail in the same way, and even if they do each will fail individually absent significant contamination or damage inside the controller. You will need a Torx T-6 bit to open the 8bitdo controller and a size 1 Phillips bit to open the Hori controller.

I have used both controllers with the Mednafen emulator on my Windows 10 PC and with the PC Engine and PC Engine CD OpenFPGA cores on Analogue Dock. They work as expected with the 8bitdo controller working as both a wired USB controller and with the 2.4G USB dongle. Note that Analogue Dock must be upgraded to OS v1.1 (final) for either controller to register input. The menu button of the 8bitdo PCE 2.4G controller does not bring up Dock's menu with Analogue OS v1.1 final, you must hold Down then press Select to bring up the menu as if the controller did not have a menu button. 

There is a special Analogue Dock firmware for the 8bitdo PCE 2.4G, without it you cannot pair the 8bitdo PCE 2.4G controllers to Analogue Dock and must use the 2.4G USB dongle to use these controllers wirelessly with Dock. With the Dock firmware installed the controller will pair to Dock without the USB dongle and the menu button works. Like other Dock firmware, you will need to revert the firmware to the standard 8bitdo firmware to pair it again with the 2.4G USB dongle. You can still use the controller as a wired controller with Dock firmware but the menu button will not work.

A wired controller like the Hori controller should give you the lowest latency (1.788ms) and a connection that cannot be interfered with by a noisy wireless environment. As the cable is connected inside the controller (and is fortunately detachable via a connector on the PCB), you are always tethered to a console. With a good quality mini-USB to USB Type-A cable of equivalent length (10') you will be able to take similar advantage of an even lower latency response (1.033ms) with the 8bitdo controller (the included cable is about 3' long). And what about wireless latency? At 7.424ms, the 8bitdo controller in wireless mode is #15 in the wireless lowest input latency test results given on this page.

There is an adapter called the USB-2-PCE that lets you use a USB controller with an original PC Engine, but I do not own one. With updated firmware this adapter boasts support for both the Hori and 8bitdo controllers.

I cannot conclude this article without talking about price. The 8bitdo controllers can be bought directly from 8btido on their Amazon store for $24.99. Unfortunately Konami only released the PC Engine Mini consoles for a relatively brief window of time and has discontinued all products within the line.  Expect to pay $70 for a used controller and over $100 for a new controller. You may just try to buy the complete console, but you will probably be spending at least $160 for it.