The one they shipped is freaking tiny. I regularly have issues with my hands cramping up from the strange shapes I have to make to hold the damned thing and press the various buttons at the same time.

More than just the size, it's shaped like you're supposed to make some use of those horn things, but that would be a mistake because then ones fingers would cover the buttons that they're supposed to press at the base of the finger.

As for the XBox controller, I've got both and the Xbox controller is barely any larger than the PS3 controller is. But, it's shaped in a way that doesn't punish people for not being children. If the PS3 hadn't debut at $600 it would be a bit more understandable.
The funny thing is that I only became aware that they were alienating their core group when somebody told me that they were. I was surprised because the Wii appeared to be to the GC what the SNES was to the NES.

Nintendo has rarely been in the position of being able to blow the competition away with graphics. There was that period in the 80s before the Genesis debut, but that's been about the only time I can recall where they were ahead graphically.

Given the little tangent about the Pandora, I thought I'd chime in: my portable of choice is the GP2X Caanoo. Wish it had just a liiiiiiiitle more development going on, but I can't argue with a bunch of emulators in my pocket running a Linux system. :D

I honestly cannot figure out what you're trying to say. I can hold and use the PS2/3 controller all day in my rather large hands and have no problem at all. You must be holding it in some bizarre fashion. Im hardly a child, nor is my wife or roomate who are also both baffled by your assertion that the controller is 'child-sized'. I mean, the D-pad on the gamecube controller was child-sized. This isn't even comparable.

Use it like this: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2006/05/004sony-booth-tour.jpg

The 'horns' go in your palm. Thumbs then rest right where they need to be with no extra movement and your index fingers are right over the triggers. It's entirely ergonomic.

Edit: I just tried playing with it the way I imagine you're trying to and I can understand how that could be awkward. Do this instead: wrap the bottom 2 fingers of each hand around the 'horn'. rest your middle fingers along the back of the controller and your index fingers over the shoulder buttons. If you do this instead of floating the thing without gripping it you should be perfectly fine.

Man, I need a life. Im actually sitting here trying to figure out how you're holding this thing.

That's sort of how I do it, but that's got issues if I get into the game, I tend to end up with cramps and the buttons tend to be in completely the wrong place for where they've got the various buttons. And invariably, if I don't take an extremely light grip to it, I end up having my fingers positioned so that it's a night mare to exert any nuanced controls.

It works fine so long as I hold it so loosely that it's just about falling out of my hand. I mean literally there's a gap of air about a half inch around it on all sides with just the tips of my fingers making contact.

It's just a bad design. The XBox controller, is designed in a way that actually seems to work pretty well. The XBox controller isn't really that much larger, but it is larger in areas that make a difference. If you've got small hands you can slide them up and reach the buttons, for folks with large hands you've got plenty of space for the fingers so that you can reach the appropriate buttons. The D-Pad is ill placed for folks with small hands, but that's about it.

Ultimately, the two controllers are nearly identical in size, but the XBox one just feels more adult sized due to the way it's proportioned. I swear sometimes that Japanese companies have a pathological hatred of full sized human adults.

I'm going to side with you; I have never owned a Playstation of any kind because I have always hated the controller. My hands aren't particularly big, but no matter how I fiddle around with it the controller never fits quite comfortably in them.