The Evolution of Game Controllers: A Story of Innovation and Ergonomics

The Nintendo 64 controller is often credited with revolutionizing the gaming industry with its innovative analog control stick. The three-pronged shape may seem unusual today, but it was a deliberate design choice made by Nintendo to accommodate both old-school classic games and new, graphically demanding titles. The company's goal was to provide developers with room for innovation while keeping the controller simple and accessible to players.

By placing the outer grips near the D-pad, designers allowed players to access the classic control scheme, while still giving them room to grip the center and right sides of the controller to interact in new ways with upcoming games. This design move proved lasting and well-loved by gamers, who could finally experience the fluid movement and precision that was previously impossible.

Fast forward to the early 2000s, when Microsoft released the Xbox in 2001. The company attempted to create a massive controller that would be the centerpiece of their console, but ultimately realized it was too large and uncomfortable for players. Instead, they replaced it with a smaller controller for the Japanese market, which proved to be more successful.

However, this experience didn't deter Microsoft from continuing to innovate and improve their controllers. In 2010, Te'o Coto revealed that Sony spent millions of dollars on R&D to create new prototypes for the PlayStation controller. Hundreds of designs were developed before they settled on a revised version that was largely similar to the old one, but with key ergonomic changes.

The Xbox One controller received similar attention to detail, with rubberized grips added to keep thumbs from slipping and a revised D-pad design that reduced fatigue and discomfort for players. The DualShock 3 and 4 controllers also underwent significant updates, including a new D-pad design with gently sloping buttons and a concave place for the thumb to rest.

Despite these innovations, professional gamers continue to push the boundaries of what is possible with game controllers. For example, one Super Smash Brothers player developed a custom controller called the "Fox controller" that allows players to enjoy the game without experiencing some of the physical strain associated with traditional controllers.

The design of game controllers has become an intimate extension of the brand, and many gamers have grown accustomed to the feel of their preferred controller. While it's unlikely that either Sony or Microsoft will redesign one of their flagship controllers in the near future, the industry as a whole continues to evolve and adapt to the needs of its players.

In recent years, there has been a growing trend towards creating custom controllers for specific games or genres. These innovative designs are allowing gamers to experience new levels of precision and control, but also raising questions about the role of game controllers in modern gaming.

As we look to the future of gaming, it's clear that the design of game controllers will continue to play a crucial role in shaping the industry. By understanding the needs and preferences of their players, manufacturers can create controllers that are both functional and enjoyable to use.

For eSports coverage, tune in to Cheddar eSports on Fubo TV. Hit the comments section below to let us know your favorite controller design and what you think makes for a good game controller. Don't forget to like and subscribe for more gaming content from Cheddar.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis was the controller for the first home video game console look at the size of that thing a decade after that Nintendo introduced the world to the joys of the d-pad and the birth of the controller as we know it and in the 30 years since then controller design has come a long way or has it in 2017 a technology design researcher measured some of the most popular controllers from the past 25 years against economic standards for things like dials and buttons to see whether controllers have gotten more ergonomic as games have gone more mainstream none of the controllers perfectly matched the proper ergonomic dimensions for things like button size and button spacing this is an interesting study but of course lab measurements and ergonomic design standards don't tell the whole story after all the very first controllers created for the game space war were modeled on railroad switches they were developed as workarounds to the complicated inputs for the pdp-1 computer and they were more about solving a computer engineering input problem than a human design problem and the more you dig into the stories behind the most iconic controllers the more you see that controller designs are anything but exercises in pure economics Playstations DualShock is one of the best-loved controllers on the market and it almost didn't exist when Sony began work on PlayStation in 1993 they were entering the console wars with an AI to take down the king in order to make it easy for nintendo players to switch over to PlayStation Sony management wanted a controller that had the same flat style as Nintendo's instead designer Te'o Gotoh came back with this curvy design with two grips management hated it they overruled Gotoh and went ahead with a flat controller even going so far as to pour the molds but Sony's president Nouriel Agha had followed the controller design process with close interest oka was a classically trained musician Jiri is casually conducting a Schubert Symphony and he also happened to be an accomplished jet pilot he liked go to his design because it gave him a 3d feel for the game similar to when he was flying a plane when management showed oka the flat design he was livid Gotoh was afraid Olga was going to Chuck the flat prototypes at the management team the curved shape that became the classic PlayStation controller might never have been born if Olga hadn't intervened and his appreciation for the design wasn't about standard economic measurements it was about the feeling of connectedness between Hardware human and game that same feeling guided Nintendo in their development of the n64 controller legendary Game Developers guru Miyamoto understood the controller and the game were one without the controller there is no game really Miyamoto's vision for the gameplay of mario 64 and the free exploration of that open 3d world led Nintendo to innovate analog control sticks if you pressed gently Mario would tiptoe if you pushed the stick all the way he would sprint but what's with the three-pronged shape the Nintendo 64 controller had to remain usable and simple but it also had to allow room for game developers to start innovating with the new graphics power the console was unleashing so no they didn't think anybody had three hands when they designed this controller they just figured people could use the two outer grips to access the d-pad for old-school classic style games and they could grip the center and right sides to use the analog stick to interact in new ways with whatever new games the developers dreamed up more computing power was partly to blame for the colossal first Xbox controller let me now unveil Xbox when Microsoft released the Xbox in 2001 the controller that got shipped to North American customers was the Duke actually putting the control in their hands we tried out over a hundred different form factors you know to find what was the most comfortable it would give them the best game gameplay it was three times bigger than Sony's controller and Microsoft killed it off after just a year replacing it with their smaller controller for the Japanese market why did it ever ship such a massive controller to begin with as soon as concept sketches for the Xbox controller were completed the circuit boards that would power the controller were manufactured based off those drawings the circuit boards were huge and they weren't going to go away so the designer had to find a way to work around them her solution was to lean into making the controller as comfortable as possible even if it was huge she departed from what had been standard controller layout and offset the analog sticks to better fit the natural position of the thumbs a design move that proved lasting and well-loved that doesn't mean these companies don't take economics and user testing into account in a 2010 interview with a Japanese gaming magazine Te'o Coto said Sony spent more time designing the PlayStation controller than the console itself Microsoft spent a hundred million dollars on R&D for an update to the Xbox 360 controller they built hundreds of prototypes some were pretty out-there one that would release smells one that would be man immersive projection around the player in the end after there's millions of dollars and hundreds of prototypes the new controller looked largely similar to the old one but they had made some key changes to help the hardcore players internally referred to as the golden hands for the Xbox one the sticks were given rubberized grips to help keep thumbs from slipping and they shaved down the disc shaped d-pad into more of a plus sign that would feel like separate keys so that you could quickly switch just by the feel face buttons got closer together so you could switch between them more quickly they also adjusted the angle of the trigger and shoulder buttons turning them slightly outward and making them bigger this was specifically about ergonomics these new triggers better fit the natural angle of the fingers the playstation team similarly made these fine-grained organ ohmic adjustments between the DualShock 3 & 4 through user testing they saw that when it came to the d-pad there were two kinds of players folks who hit it from the sides and people who hit the d-pad starting from the center both groups complained fatigue and discomfort after a couple of hours so the new d-pad had gently sloping buttons and a concave place for the thumb to rest comfortably so they do go through rigorous testing now despite all of that Pro players are still pushing the hardware and their bodies to the absolute limit right for one Super Smash Brothers player the strain of playing led to arthritis at just 23 years old two years ago I was sitting in a doctor's office and it was being made clear to me that I would never play this game again and I told the doctor that I was gonna find a way in recent years I've become really well-known for this Fox controller that I developed this is a controller that allows people to enjoy mainly without experiencing some of the organ Amin concerns that they would normally have to go through will we ever see a complete redesign of one of the flagship controllers from Sony or Microsoft probably not given how such intensely loyal player bases develop once players have put the hours in to master a particular interface game scholar Dan Parisi argues that the shape of the controller has become a haptic extension of the brand and what more intimate way to connect with your customers than the way a gamer melds with the controller for more eSports coverage tune in to cheder eSports on fubo TV hit the comments to let us know your favorite controller design what you think makes for a good game controller what you think controllers might look like in the future like subscribe hit the bell icon to get notified when cheder puts out a new video thanks so much for watching we'll see you next timethis was the controller for the first home video game console look at the size of that thing a decade after that Nintendo introduced the world to the joys of the d-pad and the birth of the controller as we know it and in the 30 years since then controller design has come a long way or has it in 2017 a technology design researcher measured some of the most popular controllers from the past 25 years against economic standards for things like dials and buttons to see whether controllers have gotten more ergonomic as games have gone more mainstream none of the controllers perfectly matched the proper ergonomic dimensions for things like button size and button spacing this is an interesting study but of course lab measurements and ergonomic design standards don't tell the whole story after all the very first controllers created for the game space war were modeled on railroad switches they were developed as workarounds to the complicated inputs for the pdp-1 computer and they were more about solving a computer engineering input problem than a human design problem and the more you dig into the stories behind the most iconic controllers the more you see that controller designs are anything but exercises in pure economics Playstations DualShock is one of the best-loved controllers on the market and it almost didn't exist when Sony began work on PlayStation in 1993 they were entering the console wars with an AI to take down the king in order to make it easy for nintendo players to switch over to PlayStation Sony management wanted a controller that had the same flat style as Nintendo's instead designer Te'o Gotoh came back with this curvy design with two grips management hated it they overruled Gotoh and went ahead with a flat controller even going so far as to pour the molds but Sony's president Nouriel Agha had followed the controller design process with close interest oka was a classically trained musician Jiri is casually conducting a Schubert Symphony and he also happened to be an accomplished jet pilot he liked go to his design because it gave him a 3d feel for the game similar to when he was flying a plane when management showed oka the flat design he was livid Gotoh was afraid Olga was going to Chuck the flat prototypes at the management team the curved shape that became the classic PlayStation controller might never have been born if Olga hadn't intervened and his appreciation for the design wasn't about standard economic measurements it was about the feeling of connectedness between Hardware human and game that same feeling guided Nintendo in their development of the n64 controller legendary Game Developers guru Miyamoto understood the controller and the game were one without the controller there is no game really Miyamoto's vision for the gameplay of mario 64 and the free exploration of that open 3d world led Nintendo to innovate analog control sticks if you pressed gently Mario would tiptoe if you pushed the stick all the way he would sprint but what's with the three-pronged shape the Nintendo 64 controller had to remain usable and simple but it also had to allow room for game developers to start innovating with the new graphics power the console was unleashing so no they didn't think anybody had three hands when they designed this controller they just figured people could use the two outer grips to access the d-pad for old-school classic style games and they could grip the center and right sides to use the analog stick to interact in new ways with whatever new games the developers dreamed up more computing power was partly to blame for the colossal first Xbox controller let me now unveil Xbox when Microsoft released the Xbox in 2001 the controller that got shipped to North American customers was the Duke actually putting the control in their hands we tried out over a hundred different form factors you know to find what was the most comfortable it would give them the best game gameplay it was three times bigger than Sony's controller and Microsoft killed it off after just a year replacing it with their smaller controller for the Japanese market why did it ever ship such a massive controller to begin with as soon as concept sketches for the Xbox controller were completed the circuit boards that would power the controller were manufactured based off those drawings the circuit boards were huge and they weren't going to go away so the designer had to find a way to work around them her solution was to lean into making the controller as comfortable as possible even if it was huge she departed from what had been standard controller layout and offset the analog sticks to better fit the natural position of the thumbs a design move that proved lasting and well-loved that doesn't mean these companies don't take economics and user testing into account in a 2010 interview with a Japanese gaming magazine Te'o Coto said Sony spent more time designing the PlayStation controller than the console itself Microsoft spent a hundred million dollars on R&D for an update to the Xbox 360 controller they built hundreds of prototypes some were pretty out-there one that would release smells one that would be man immersive projection around the player in the end after there's millions of dollars and hundreds of prototypes the new controller looked largely similar to the old one but they had made some key changes to help the hardcore players internally referred to as the golden hands for the Xbox one the sticks were given rubberized grips to help keep thumbs from slipping and they shaved down the disc shaped d-pad into more of a plus sign that would feel like separate keys so that you could quickly switch just by the feel face buttons got closer together so you could switch between them more quickly they also adjusted the angle of the trigger and shoulder buttons turning them slightly outward and making them bigger this was specifically about ergonomics these new triggers better fit the natural angle of the fingers the playstation team similarly made these fine-grained organ ohmic adjustments between the DualShock 3 & 4 through user testing they saw that when it came to the d-pad there were two kinds of players folks who hit it from the sides and people who hit the d-pad starting from the center both groups complained fatigue and discomfort after a couple of hours so the new d-pad had gently sloping buttons and a concave place for the thumb to rest comfortably so they do go through rigorous testing now despite all of that Pro players are still pushing the hardware and their bodies to the absolute limit right for one Super Smash Brothers player the strain of playing led to arthritis at just 23 years old two years ago I was sitting in a doctor's office and it was being made clear to me that I would never play this game again and I told the doctor that I was gonna find a way in recent years I've become really well-known for this Fox controller that I developed this is a controller that allows people to enjoy mainly without experiencing some of the organ Amin concerns that they would normally have to go through will we ever see a complete redesign of one of the flagship controllers from Sony or Microsoft probably not given how such intensely loyal player bases develop once players have put the hours in to master a particular interface game scholar Dan Parisi argues that the shape of the controller has become a haptic extension of the brand and what more intimate way to connect with your customers than the way a gamer melds with the controller for more eSports coverage tune in to cheder eSports on fubo TV hit the comments to let us know your favorite controller design what you think makes for a good game controller what you think controllers might look like in the future like subscribe hit the bell icon to get notified when cheder puts out a new video thanks so much for watching we'll see you next time\n"