[greiskul]

Yes.

In a 2022 interview with CBC, Rush added the Bluetooth game controllers were durable — “it’s meant for a 16 year old to throw it around,” he said, tossing the controller to the floor — and that they kept spares on board “just in case.”

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/06/20/video-game-co...

Also, the controllers appear to be only to control the periscope. Which is not a critical component of this submarine. Everybody is fixating on them, but that's not what caused them to sink/get lost. It was probably the rest of the shoddy engineering.

[prmoustache]

Having spares is one thing. The question is do they test spares on a regular basis, make sure they have been charged between every mission and rotate them to test battery life?

[saberdancer]

No, controller on Titan is for movement as he talked about it (they don't have a periscope).

But he also mentioned a touch screen when talking about the controller so I bet that they can use the touchscreen to control the submarine as well.

Still most likely cause of failure is that the viewport failed and they died immediately.