As influential as the Wii has been, the gamepad isn’t going anywhere. Heck, even Nintendo’s latest Wii game likes opposable thumbs more than it does motion control. The future: gamepads + motion + touch. The choice is yours.
But when it comes to gamepads, the excessive buttons on PS3 and 360 controllers have got to go (17 depressible ones to be exact. 17!) They make for lazy gaming. They muck up the interface. They encourage meaningless button mapping. And they fail to encourage the developer to make artistic sacrifices.
Whose to blame for the button madness? None other than Nintendo, who in 1990 released an eight button controller with six action buttons, largely due to the increasing numbers of buttons used by Street Fighter games. (Honestly, Capcom, Street fighter would have been just as good with two kicks and punches as opposed to three apiece.)
But what’s past is past. What I’m interested in is the future of the gamepad, in a post-motion world. And by golly, I think I’ve found it: A dogbone NES controller, with the addition of a single analog stick and two shoulder buttons (rudimentary photoshop job pictured). As many action buttons as the glorious Game Boy Advance, which did well handling all those original 6-button games found on SNES. I might even be willing to spare both the select and start buttons for a single “menu,” home, or guide button.
But having originally favored a second analog stick in addition to fewer buttons, I think it’s high time developers ditch it and figure out how to program an auto camera, so I can just focus on movement and hitting buttons. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Who’s with me!?
I can see where you're going with that. Simplicity has always been the core of every good concept in both software and hardware.
I wouldn't personally ditch the remote control idea of the Wii Remote, though, because despite the market's overuse of waggle mechanics, it also made for some pretty creative games if we're talking about the pointer controls. They're mainly on WiiWare.
I'd use that dogbone NES controller as a Classic Controller extension of the Wii 2's Wii Remote. 😉
Driving games junkie here, and.. not a fan the too-minimalistic controller.
I'm willing to ditch the second analog stick, the dpad, and the rumble function.. but leave 4 actions buttons.
And don't mess with the analog triggers, thanks.
I completely disagree with your point about the Xbox 360 and PS3. Less buttons on these controllers would just lead to more contrived button mapping to cope with the, and not unjustly, complicated games that currently exist. As it is playing games like Dragon Age is made difficult by a lack of usable buttons. Design should follow the games, not the other way around.
I like it, but I'd still leave 4 face buttons. The SNES controller was awesome, and was just at the edge of having to many buttons.
The SNES controller is perfect in my opinion, although I do admit mixing up a,b,x and y on occasion. Maybe they could tweek the layout of those buttons, something more like the Gamecube where they had different shaped buttons.
I've never really had any problems with any control layout for any game. I don't seem to mind getting my hands to adjust to whatever layout I end up using. That being said, I'm mostly just a Nintendo and PC gamer, sofI haven't had to deal too much with the aforementioned PS3 and XBOX setups.
WRONG!! Why can't we have the best of both worlds? Just because there are more buttons doesn't mean developers have to use all of them. More buttons = more possabilities
WilhelmR: Isn't four action buttons more than enough for racing games? Right trigger for acceleration. Left for braking. A for hand braking. B for other actions/camera switching (or that could be mapped to the analog stick click)?
Well, the 4 face buttons, D-pad and two shoulder buttons have been with us for a while and mostly everyone is used to it thanks to the DS family noawadays bur yeah, playing an NES game felt natural and not too demanding. Just finished Bionic Commando on PS3 and you have one button for a weak punch, another for a strong attach, another for changing weapons, another for shooting said weapons, another for the retractible arm, another for jumping, a button for dodging, you can press the second analog stick to zoom in, move with the analog, change the camera with the D-pad… and there's a button to LOOK (square) that I used ONCE in the whole game. Everything could have been done with 4 buttons (press lightly for light attack, deep press for strong attack, one shoot button, one change inventory button, automatic dodge with analog while in attack mode, auto zoom with the sniper rifle and one button for swinging).
@Blake: I'll meet you in the middle there on the GBA and agree with you. I still love pulling out my NES-skinned SP and playing till the battery dies…
Nah I've always like the PS2 controller over the gamecube and N64 controller, but I think that the classic controller for Wii is pretty good, but duel analog sticks are important, just for camera control.
I would say motion is king over all of this, but I can see why its fun to go back to controllers sometimes, and how that works better for some games.
I'd rather see A/B/X/Y and lose the shoulder buttons. Arena shooters and more unique games like Chu Chu Rocket are important to me, and were unplayable on the Game Boy Advance due to the button layout.
Having been a gamer since literally 1972 and done some Atari 2600 coding, I'm all about simple interfaces. I have a USB Atari joystick sitting right next to me plugged into my computer. But all you have to do is try to play Defender on the 2600 to see why sometimes you need more buttons (and any game designed before 2007 on the iPhone to see why you need buttons, period.)
As for "figure out how to program an auto camera, so I can just focus on movement and hitting buttons", the effectiveness of an auto camera is directly proportional to how much like a rail shooter your game is. Not a fan of rail shooters, myself. But for example, some parts of Mario Galaxy 2 are very linear, and the auto camera works great. Some are a little more freeform, and made me want to tweak the camera all the time. Sometimes it took camera control away from me, and I hated it. I like less linear experiences and more direct camera control; in particular, I want huge levels with amazing draw distance and the ability to look all around them. Super Mario Sunshine still wins for me in that regard, even if the control scheme got a little heavy-handed at times.
@Blake: That would be enough for everyone but the hardcore virtual drivers who'd want to change gears, then, you really need 2 more buttons 🙂
Gamecube is the perfect controller!
i'd rather have A/B/X/2 shoulder buttons and an analog stick and then stick on some motion control and i'm all in it doesn't even need a start button because X has that covered. the Y button for me is optional and i'd rather actually not have it.