Having designed certain products, sure there were cheaper ways to do it. BUT...the specification required the product to work after five minutes immersion under 10 inches of water, work after exposure to a salt water mist and subsequent drying, a drop onto concrete from a height of 45 inches, and rigorous testing and statistical analysis to show that the validation testing would meet the specs (only some listed above) over a 15 year life. Under life-or-death battle conditions after years of use, I hope that X-Box controller still works.
Or you could 1000 spare Xbox controllers and still save 8k over the previous setup.
Switch one every week for the 15 year life time to alleviate wear and tear, and have 220 over for emergencies.
no shit though xbox 360 controllers are unnaturally durable. over the life of my 360 i never needed more than one and the console died before this thing ever did, and that thing survived dogs, small kids, being sat on, thrown at walls but friends, soda immersion… i believe it. i’ve even seen a pic of one of these being used for small drones in combat but that may have been just very convincing photoshop.
Switch one every week for the 15 year life time to alleviate wear and tear, and have 220 over for emergencies.