The second controller

A console with one controller is a single-player machine that happens to be in a living room. Everything here is about the second person, whether they are on the sofa or three countries away.

The straightforward answer first. A full-size Pro Controller is the one that survives an evening rather than an hour: proper grips, a real d-pad, and a battery that outlasts the people holding it. It is what somebody buys after playing a long game on the small ones.

The cheaper answer is also a real one. A pair of Joy-Cons splits into two controllers, which is the trick the console was designed around and the reason a spontaneous second player is possible at all. Two halves, two people, no negotiation.

None of which matters without a reason. Mario Kart is the reason: it is the game that people who do not play games will play, it explains itself in one race, and it is almost the entire argument for owning more than one controller.

The other kind of together is slower. Minecraft is the game that outlives the console it was bought for, and it is played alongside somebody rather than against them, which is a different and longer-lasting sort of evening.

And when the other person is not in the building, the requirement changes entirely. A wireless gaming headset is less about sound than about the microphone: playing with somebody remote is a conversation with a game attached, and the headset is the half that makes it one.