The History of the Game Controller

1up.com has up a feature going through the history of the game controller. Starting in the dark ages of the PDP-1, the article moves all the way up to Nintendo's mysterious Revolution controller. From the article: "And when will Nintendo tip its hand? All we know at this point is that the Revolution will be backwards compatible with GameCube controllers, so at the very least the system will support all the functionality you're used to. But apart from that, will the controller feature a built-in touch screen and microphone, like the Nintendo DS? Is it just a box of brain-wave-reading goo? One thing is for sure: if history is any indication, there's no telling what the game controller we use twenty years from now will look like. And just as long as there's no numeric keypad, we should be okay."

Comments

Nintendo has all the ideas

[dxprog]

At least this article gave credit where credit was due (unlike IGN's recent controller article). Nintendo came up with almost every controller idea and was subsequently ripped off by everybody else. I'm sure the Revolution controller will be just like all their other ones... Revolutionary!

Innovation still requires brand

[SalaciousPucker]

While Nintendo is second to none when it comes to innovation in gaming, it's unlikely that their brand can carry a console at this point. The fair-to-poor sales of their last two consoles has more or less made them bit players in the industry they re-created.

Nintendo just doesn't have the weight, at this point, to get 3rd party support from the likes of Electronic Arts. They also lack the money or savy to piece a game lineup together....one that covers all the bases (kind of like Microsoft did when it launched the XBOX).

I'd like to think they have some magic beans (like a super-innovative-controller) to make this next console a real revolution, but even if they have the innovation it could still fail on brand.