Before we get all nitpicky it should be noted out of fairness that the Xbox 360's designers had no easy task. They wanted to give gamers the beauty and convenience of a wireless controller, but they also needed to make sure that help is near when batteries run low in the middle of a critical Xbox Live competitive experience. Hot-swapping of batteries isn't an option in high-stakes scenarios (those of you who are in league 1 of Project Gotham Racing 3 know what we mean).
The only solution to these conflicting concerns is to create a controller that accepts a power cord for charging at any time.
Unfortunately, Microsoft's designers underestimated gamer laziness. Rather than use the play-and-charge kit only when the controllers need to be charged, we find ourselves just leaving them plugged in all the time because it's too much trouble to neatly wrap up then put away the play-and-charge kit. Once we started leaving it in the system, we were able to recharge the controllers more conveniently, but now our living room looks messy! The core wireless design aesthetic has been ruined.
Like us, most gamers are going to leave their play-and-charge cables plugged in to the Xbox 360 so that when their controller runs out of juice they can charge it up conveniently. At that point, it doesn't matter if you disengage from the play-and-charge for wireless gaming because you've still got a spaghetti monster's worth of wires spilling out from your Xbox 360.
Essentially, we're now back to wired controllers. Even if Microsoft were to release the mysteriously absent battery charger, we'd be subject to the fundamental risk of play interruption. But at this point, anything's better than these damned wires. The solution? See photo.
In sum: a beautiful controller is marred by a jumble of wires. It's still the best controller to ever grace a game system, but that doesn't mean it's perfect.
Previous Xbox 360 annoyances: 001.
