You sound like you're talking about most innovative rather than best.
There's a bit of that in there, but I'm certainly referring to GOAT.
The 360 controller didn't re-invent the wheel. The wheel didn't need re-inventing at the time. It just needed some polish, and that's what the 360 offered. There's a reason I still use that controller for PC games (that aren't better with mouse and keyboard...Watch Dogs for example) over any other offering. It's simply the best.
It's great, and I do like it. It's a streamlined Xbox S controller which was a streamlined Xbox controller which was a Dreamcast-Nights hybrid.
But comparing it across genres? I'd take the DualShock for almost any game that's not an FPS.
RPGs? Sixaxis is perfect..
Fighters? 360 controller is unusable...
anything is better.
Action games? I tend to have much faster action on the DS.
Adventure? Same as above.
FPS? 360's concave analog sticks, that are staggered along the y-axis of the controller is just an incredibly ergonomic design for this type of game. It's really vastly superior to the DS in this regard.
Racing? No question, the DS. The staggered controllers are a hinderance in this type of game for me. Also, I prefer the smoother (looser) action on the DS for these types of games.
I also love that the 360 (and Xbone) controllers prioritize the joystick over the D-pad, too. It feels like they actually have a sense of what types of games people are actually playing these days.
I don't think prioritize makes sense for the 3rd generation of Microsoft's consoles, and the 4th generation of it's controller. They've had more than enough time to
fix the
broken d-pad. It's not an issue of priorities as much as they simply aren't willing to acknowledge the problem. The d-pad on the Xbox controllers has always been
awful.
With regards to what people play, well, Microsoft is essentially telling me, a fighting game enthusiast, not to play fighters on their console. Now if you want to know, I do not use the DS for most fighting games I play anyway - I own a MadCatz FightStick for those games. But the difference between the DS and the 360 controller is that you simply cannot play at a high level with the Xbox pad
and buttons which are fat and slow. You can play at a high level with a PS controller.
The DS4's stick placement still feels stuck in the past.
It's not optimal for first-person shooters. That's really all it boils down to. The Microsoft controller is perfect for FPS -- and much less useful than the DS for basically anything else. So, it's a compromise.
If the majority of games that you play are FPS like Call of Duty (or Halo, in my case), then yes, the 360 controller is a
must. I wouldn't even want to play a FPS on the Playstation because of the controller and how inferior it is for FPS.
But for anything else, it's hard to see the 360's advantages -- especially for games that use the d-pad, games that require extremely fast button presses (as in within specific frames), or games that need complex button combinations. Those games would be best played on a DS controller.