1) As others have said xinput is pervasive as this point. If the Xbox 360 controller becomes hard to source then I'm sure a replacement xinput derived device will still be around. If not, it's a well documented standard and new devices can be made.
2) This leans on my first response. Xinput is the winner here, not the Xbox controller. If after testing they can't harden it then we have a lot of other options, up to and including a bespoke controller.
I guess what I'm saying is that video game controls are so much fun for a reason. They 'just work'. And while there is a little bit of dystopian sheen to seeing video games become the source for defacto tooling for war machines I'm always for a simplification of man/machine interactions.
First of all, I want to say I agree with you. That said, you didn't really refute GP's point.
The IBM XT was well documented, had many clones and alternatives, but still you can't find parts at most electronic stores 33 years later. Several decades is a very long time in consumer electronics.
We're trying to solve the problem of how to point periscopes here, not solve the generalized problem that when it comes down to it, nobody really knows what 2027 is going to be like.
(By contrast, "this is a new vector for malware if the supply chain is not secured" is a valid concern because one presumes and/or hopes that bespoke military hardware is better controlled there. This is a solvable problem, but solving it eats into the cost advantage.)
Further more, I agree with your parenthetical that the malware angle is the more important argument. I disagree that it's a solveable problem though, but I feel the Xbox controller isn't the reason it isn't solvable. Any platform can be hacked given sufficient motivation.
Honestly I think using these controllers are likely the best approach, but let's not pretend it doesn't have issues (it's just the it's the same issues or less cumbersome issues than alternatives).
The Navy can buy thousands of Xbox controllers for the cost of even a single bespoke controller. The US has on the order of 100 submarines. Replacement controllers for the lifetime of each submarine -- even multiplied by 10 -- is a hilariously small cost compared to the alternatives.
So buy 1,000+ Xbox controllers and keep them in a warehouse. Problem solved.
Yes, I was going to suggest this. It would solve the availability issue and reduce the malware issue. If it's replacing a $38,000 item, they could buy 1,265 extra per sub.
> video game controls are so much fun for a reason
I'm really more of a keyboard guy. Sometimes a mouse.
This is the worst-case scenario for what is a rather overblown concern in the first place.
> I'm really more of a keyboard guy. Sometimes a mouse.
Even when operating a submarine?
Exactly, use the correct controller for the correct scenario. Keyboard+mouse works for many games, but for games where you control vehicles (racing games, aircraft simulators, submarines), joystick controls just work better.
Also, let's not forget that Microsoft would probably help out with hardening the security of the controllers. It's not like the Navy would have to reverse engineer the controller to figure out how to make it more secure.
The Navy will need to write their own firmware anyway.
Eventually it will be surpassed, but it's far more available and supported than whatever they were doing before, and its simple enough to be easy to continue to manufacture.
Also, do we really think the military couldn't find someone to contract with to continue making them if they needed to? Knock offs are $20 on Amazon, they're very simple devices.
And that goes right into cstross' second point...
Which do you think is easier to replace today, or get a manufacturer to remake: a model M from 1984, or a custom machine keyboard from 1984.
Hell, wind the back another 10 years - I worked in a hospital with a really old bit of kit. It was a Siemens EEG machine, and the keyboard was capacitive metal tabs. No travel at all - they simply registered when pressed by a finger but not other things (like a modern smartphone screen). I'd much rather dig up a common keyboard than one of those curios.
Xinput is a pervasive standard at this point, to where there is a large market of third party controllers and software support in various linux distros as well as a JS api to access it in Chrome and Firefox.
2. Are you sure the non-commercial version come from and doesn't have embedded processor, and how do you know it's really good quality and not just very expensive because of low quantity production?
It's a tough problem.
At $20 a piece, the pentagon has now spent $10,000. This is not what in military spending passes for excess $ :) Yes, the numbers might be somewhat off, and there's storage cost, but really - we're talking Pentagon here. The place of the infamous $640 toilet seat :) (I know, the price got reduced to $100. Still, on the scale of Pentagon procurement, a lifetime buy of XBox controllers is pretty trivial)
I think when its come to HIDs like controllers or keyboards, off the shelf is fine. We can have the exact same conversation for Dell keyboards or 3rd party keyboards and mice.
And as I said to a sibling comment below, you can't always just buy excess. You have budgets you need to stay under, to support everything you handle.
Consumer grade is not the same as buying from the same places we buy, either. You have to use approved vendors, which add their own markup. What you or I may buy for $5 might only be available for $25.
First. No, lifetime buys are not always a tough problem. While they can be tough, consumer grade electronics have to be the best product to predict lifetime buys on due to clear end of life and good data on mean time to failure.
Second. Let's do some math. Let's assume a 30 year operation. There are 48 of this sub planned. Let's say for some reason they go through 3 a year. At $30 each, we're looking at $130k to outfit the entire fleet of subs for their operational lifetime. Or, we could buy about 3.5 of the existing joystick, not even enough to outfit the 4 subs that are already in operation.
Lastly, it is likely that a 3rd party would take over the manufacture of these devices when they end of life anyway. It's a popular consumer electronic after all. The government would just buy a bunch then, reducing lifetime warehouse costs and getting better data to predict the lifetime buy.
The problem comes when you start going through 3 a year, but then say 5 years down the road you start going through 15 a year. There could be a premature wear issue, some bug, an update from a related system, whatever. But you can't always plan for those, and it can come back to bite you. And whomever has the inventory at that time can have quite a markup.
For what it's worth, I think this controller idea is excellent.
And while I agree that excess stock costs pale in comparison to a sub or boat, multiply that by every part necessary to keep one operational, and then face all the people every year who say the defense budget needs cut.
I'm sure, though, that both 1. and 2. are concerns the US Navy will have given ample consideration before making this move.
(Imagine if current submarines were using SNES controllers... )
https://www.amazon.co.uk/TRIXES-Retro-Replacement-Controller...
https://www.amazon.com/CirKa-S91-Premium-Controller-SNES/dp/...
The manufacturers in China would have to put backdoors into all of them, which would be noticed pretty quickly, and the gain is what? They can control the periscope direction? That would be noticed immediately too.
I'm not saying it's impossible, but it sounds more like a plot device for a "set your brain on the seat beside you" action movie.
second concern should be taken seriously however.
1. The Virginia class was first commissioned in 2004, with a 33 year design life. The XBox 360 was first shown in public in 2005, with a design life of ...? Yup, it's consumer electronics, with a design life of much less than 33 years. Even though there are on the order of 80-100M of them in the wild, by and by XBox 360s and replacement parts will be getting scarce.
(If you think this is an exaggeration, consider the availability of spare parts today for a computer system commissioned 33 years ago, in 1984 — an original IBM PC XT, perhaps, or an original Macintosh, both of which were manufactured in — for the time — high volume. Things like 5.25" floppy disks, or a replacement M-series IBM keyboard with the original DIN plug, were once ubiquitous, but today they're rarities.)
2. A second concern is that these days everything comes with an embedded processor and an enterprising hostile entity might try to sneak malware on board a fast attack submarine via the periscope controller handset. (I've no idea what form such malware might take, or what it might accomplish, but that's not the point: it's that using cheap commercial handsets widens the threat surface of the submarine's sensor suite arbitrarily.)