I'm right handed

Now there's a confession! Well, I, like most humans, am right handed. That means that when it comes to tasks that require either strength or precision, my right hand is the hand of choice. I've been playing Secret Weapons over Normandy (on the XBox), an arcade WWII air combat game. This game comes with one controller setup. It puts pitch and roll on the left analogue stick of the controller, leaving the right side in control of the throttle. The player's primary means of controlling the airplane he or she is flying is by adjusting the pitch and roll of the aircraft. Since this is a game about fighting aircrafts, the core gameplay element is trying to aim your aircraft towards the target that you want to destroy, preferably while avoiding the terrain and enemy fire. This requires some motor skills and precision, and all of that is put on the players left thumb.

There is probably a little more thought in this than you might think at first. The game requires you to switch target and fire your secondary weapon with your right hand. The designer probably thought about that and decided that you would not want to remove your thumb from the aiming when you wanted to fire. This is probably true and if had my will, I'd move the secondary fire to the left trigger and the switch the controls of the left and right thumb stick.

And why can't I? Most game engines separate the reading of the input device from the control code and have a translation module inbetween. This makes a lot of sense from an engineering point of view, and it should be easy to add even if your game engine currently does not have this separation. This design also makes it easy to create different control schemes, in fact, there's nothing preventing you from allowing the player to create his or her own controller setup. Letting the player select the most suitable controller setup for him or her removes the responsibility of the designer to perform the impossible art of creating a controller setup that suits everyone. You would not have to choose between making the controller left or right handed, and it would also allow for more exotic demands like those of people who do not have complete mobility in their hands and fingers or may have lost a finger.