I did a shell swap for my Switch Pro controller

[Votterbin]

Lately I've been wanting to give my controllers their own kind of flair, so I started with my Switch Pro controller of 5 years -- I wanted a bright but kinda contrast-y color palette so I picked a blue shell, white grips, white buttons, and white sticks and this is the end result!

 

I'm honestly pretty proud of this, I really like how it looks. Took the whole thing apart myself and swapped the internals over to the new shell. The black part from the midframe is still there at the top, you can't see it from this angle, and tbh I wish that top part was its own separate piece, then maybe the shell would've come with a blue top piece. I was really worried the white grips would look tacky but actually it doesn't ruin the design too much, I don't think.

 

The blue shell has an octagonal gate -- mostly because I liked that on the Gamecube controller and thought I'd like it here (maybe I should customize another Pro controller to have a Gamecube color palette...). Hasn't really affected my gameplay in things like 3D World, Mario 64 or Smash Bros. all that much, but it does make a lot of noise when you spin the sticks around so I'd say that's an upgrade. Plus I like the feeling of the sticks hitting the angles.

 

The plastic definitely feels cheaper than an actual Pro controller -- I can feel the ridge between the grip and front piece and the sticks use soft plastic instead of rubber (which surprisingly doesn't bother me nearly as much as I thought it would). But it doesn't feel like it's gonna break in my hands. You can see some overspray from the spray paint they used on the inside of the shell so I'm mildly worried about how well the blue's gonna hold up over the next few years.

 

Sorry that the picture's so grainy, I don't know why my phone captured it like this. The blue also looks much lighter in the picture when it's a darker shade IRL. Phone cameras are weird.

My next project: aluminum shells for my joycons!

[RDETalus]

10 hours ago, Votterbin said:

so I'm mildly worried about how well the blue's gonna hold up over the next few years.

Good news is that you can simply remove it, and give it a new color

[Votterbin]

8 hours ago, RDETalus said:

Good news is that you can simply remove it, and give it a new color

That is true, and since I've already taken this thing apart it wouldn't be too hard to do it again.

[Individualised]

I couldn't see the letters on the buttons at first, looked kinda strange. Very cool though!

[Wyrmwood]

Looks suitably "Nintendo", the Switch Pro controllers are actually pretty great but look a bit generic compared with all other previous Nintendo controllers. Yeah, GameCube purple would look cool for next one.

[Votterbin]

11 hours ago, Wyrmwood said:

Looks suitably "Nintendo", the Switch Pro controllers are actually pretty great but look a bit generic compared with all other previous Nintendo controllers. Yeah, GameCube purple would look cool for next one.

And most of their special editions look pretty bland too, the only one I feel looks good is the new one they released for Tears Of The Kingdom.