How game controllers are made
The rumble in a controller comes from small motors spinning lopsided weights inside the handles.
- stations
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- things upstream
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- raw sources
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- steps from the ground
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The short version
A modern gamepad is a molded plastic shell around one circuit board. The board carries a wireless chip, motion sensors and contact pads under every button. Rubber domes sit over those pads, each thumbstick sits on a pair of position sensors, and small motors in the grips supply the rumble. A rechargeable lithium-ion cell powers the wireless versions.
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Mold the shell halves
Molten plastic is injected into steel molds to make the front and back halves of the case, the button caps and the triggers. Each shot cools in seconds and pops out at its final shape.
Goes in -
Populate the main board
Machines print solder paste onto a circuit board and place the processor, the wireless chip, the motion sensors and the charging circuit, then melt everything into place in a reflow oven. Bare copper pads are left wherever a button will press.
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Lay the rubber domes
A molded silicone sheet with a dome over each button sits on the board. Pressing a button squashes its dome until a carbon pill underneath bridges two pads and closes the circuit. The dome springs back on release.
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Fit the thumbsticks
Each stick module sits on two sensors at right angles, one reading left and right and one reading up and down. Most use potentiometers, which wear with time and can cause drift, while some newer designs use magnetic Hall effect sensors with no rubbing contacts.
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Mount the rumble motors
A small motor with an off-center weight goes into each handle. The left one is often larger than the right, so a game can mix a deep shake with a fine buzz.
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Connect battery and screw shut
Wireless models get a rechargeable lithium-ion cell plugged into the board. The halves are pressed together around the board and fastened with screws hidden under the grips or labels.
1000 mAh in the DualShock 4
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Test every input
Each finished controller is paired with a tester that checks every button, both sticks, the triggers, the motion sensors and the motors. The stick centers are calibrated before boxing.
Worth repeating
- The original DualShock, released in 1997, was named for its two vibration motors.
- Sega used magnetic Hall effect sensors in an analog pad in 1996, and the idea has come back in the 2020s as a fix for stick drift.
- Sony acknowledged in 2014 that the rubber on the DualShock 4 sticks wore out early on 10 percent of controllers.
Back to the ground
Follow every input upstream and game controller starts as these 31 raw sources.
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Sources
These sources say little about the factory steps themselves, so parts of this line are a general description. Treat the details with care, and tell us if you know better.
Cite this page: "How game controllers are made." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/game-controller