Re: [w3c/gamepad] id field in gamepad might have a persistent identifier? (#73)

> Being able to distinguish between different devices. Consoles (which only support the manufacturer's standard controllers) have mostly settled on having LEDs to indicate player 1-4 on the controller itself. Having some way to indicate the device is critical if the user connects more than one controller.

I think I understand this use case, but I'm not sure the unique identifier string is a very effective solution. It doesn't provide a signal on the controller itself (as you suggest is now common practice on consoles), and the names may not be very human-usable at all (which of my controllers is `810-3-USB Gamepad`? what if I have four XBox One controllers connected?). Consoles used to address this by having the players press buttons in some order and then assigning that controller a temporary handle (Player 1) or color. That seems like it would work better than displaying an `id` field and handle a wider range of situations. And it's similar to @barryleiba's user-provided nickname approach without requiring user agent implementation. (However, it wouldn't easily persist nicknames across sessions, which I think is also a privacy advantage.)

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Received on Saturday, 9 June 2018 23:01:19 UTC