Controllers that cheap generally are made of terrible creeky plastic, mushy buttons and generally poor assembly.

You can get decent retro styled USB controllers, but they will be a bit more expensive than this one.

Yeah I love the 8bitdo ones. But they're not inexpensive.

People are always surprised that the controllers are the largest line item when building a retropie. You really want quality though, they make a big difference in that the dpads and the thumb sticks are both good.

I picked up my NES controllers at Goodwill. Super cheap and the real thing.