As the years go on and my fingers get more wear and tear, my first question seeing the tiny controller option was "I wonder how bad my hand will cramp using this" but it looks absolutely perfect for kids.
I dunno. I'll grant that it's a clever idea but those half-controllers aren't going to have all the buttons that a full controller does, so games using that mode will be restricted in what controls they have. Plus, the ergonomics is not going to be as good as a full controller as well.
But they don't need to have all the buttons or even be ergonomic; they just need to be convenient enough that there's nothing else that provides the same functionality or better. Everything else just affects the quality of the experience, but that determines whether anyone even buys it.
It looks like they've kept the D-Pad in so it can double as the A/B/X/Y buttons in that situation, which I think is a really clever way to alleviate some of that issue. I think the type of games where this use case makes sense probably don't need a large number of buttons anyways, though.
> those half-controllers aren't going to have all the buttons that a full controller does