Interesting. I tore one down recently. It was a gift for my nephew but didn't work out of the box. Well, it did "work", as in, it identified as genuine controller; had all "real stuff" look, but buttons skipped, lagged, or just didn't work.

The insides revealed a mix of genuine components (probably off of scrap?) and an assembly-line quality bodge-work. (I didn't take any pictures, but I still have it -- so I can post some pictures if anyone's interested.)

Certainly would like to see this also;

Would be quite good content to let other places know too - hackaday for example.

I took a few pictures and uploaded them here [1].

I recall that I'd already de-soldered a few components (for the salvage-drawer!) and cleaned the awful flux residues so the my pictures look much cleaner than how it was when I opened it [2].

It still turns on though, so I might end up doing more digging into it. I'd add whatever I find in the repo soon.

Hope that this is useful for "reasons"!

[1] https://github.com/prashnts/mods/tree/master/devices/dubious...

[2] https://github.com/prashnts/mods/blob/master/devices/dubious...

I would certainly be interested to see this.

I posted some pictures and linked it in sibling comment.

Unfortunately I suspect everything on Amazon is unreliable now, we just notice technology item issues first because we know them better.

Not necessarily; tech items have huge margins compared to raw materials cost, most of the expense is design and QC. Binned/inferior components marked as the genuine article are worth counterfeiting in a way that other items aren't, besides the other known exceptions (e.g. fashion items)

Does anyone know if "Shipped from and sold by Amazon.com" still guarantees not co-mingled inventory?

That's been my one line of defense against knockoffs after hearing in the past that was the case. Whereas an item that's "Sold by Sony and fulfilled by Amazon.com" will pay Sony for the sale but might actually use co-mingled inventory that came from a fraudulent seller.

I guess neither of them address the problem in the article though which is now a new source of issues I didn't know I needed to be looking out for, of getting a return which may have been tampered with or swapped out instead of a brand new product.

Did that ever guarantee you wouldn't get commingled inventory? The only guarantee I know is to buy amazon basics products. Unfortunately using this as a strategy to guarantee a minimum quality provides perverse incentives.

As of a few years ago even "Shipped from and sold by Amazon.com" resulted in comingled inventory for me. I was unable to purchase a new Sony phone without getting some other seller's comingled inventory. Which was problematic since that seller incorrectly labeled Hong Kong versions of the phone as US versions.

I bought gilette razors from Amazon and really was convinced Gilette was going downhill. Nope. They were probably counterfeits.

Wow. I thought the explanation was that also they were going downhill after my 5 year hiatus from shaving. This is a plausible explanation.

So what do you think actually happened here? Was the controller a really good counterfeit, or was it real but used? In the latter case, did it show signs of wear?

Yeah, there are fake PlayStation controllers floating around. Sony issued a warning about fake PS3 controllers a while back: https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/legal/warning-counterfeit-...

Definitely a really good counterfeit.