Whatever Happened To The Joystick?

Ant writes "MSN UK has up an article that looks into the 'downfall' of the joystick: 'Sometimes technology disappears completely, but often it just fades into the background — still existing, still being used and sold and, occasionally, desired, but probably looking wistfully back on past glories. Which neatly described the joystick's steady slide away from its role as THE gaming peripheral to a fondly remembered also ran. But the joystick's tale is a long and convoluted one — and it is worth looking back into its often mysterious and ill-studied history before explaining why it will rise from the ashes like the mythical phoenix.' Seen on ClassicGaming."

Comments

Good ones are expensive

[Mr. Underbridge]

Today's games require dual analog controllers and about 27 buttons. A decent joystick set that has all that functionality does exist - but it's primarily relegated to the flight sim community.

To have dual analog controllers in a large form factor, you'd have to have the joysticks mounted on something sturdy. Recall that back in Atari days, you used your weak hand to stabilize the thing while controlling it with your dominant hand. With two sticks, you'd need a base. And that would be big and not very mobile. And you'd still have to have some design where you could easily press all the buttons without moving your hands. Again, like a flight sim system, but those are very expensive.

So basically, the joystick got shrunk and put on a handheld controller.

Re:Good ones are expensive

[AKAImBatman]

Did you ever actually use some of the pre-gamepad joysticks? I expanded on the issues in this thread, but the problem can be summed up in one word: TORQUE.

There's nothing more "fun" than fighting one's self for stability of the controller. Some of the controllers were extremely hard on the wrists and caused tiring rather quickly. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the console joysticks were unnatural control devices. When playing my classic game machines, I often do things like hold the joystick sideways in an attempt to find a better grip. (Or at least get gravity on my side. ;))

Joysticks always worked best in an arcade environment where the rotational forces were absorbed by the heavy machines rather than your hands.

Re:Good ones are expensive

[nschubach]

As far as I'm concerned, the Joystick did evolve, into what you called an Analog stick. Now every Playstation/XBox on the planet has two joysticks for every controller and the Wii has one on a "dongle thing."

Joysticks are everywhere.

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't each XBox 360 and PS3 controller have *TWO* joysticks on them??

Re:The joystick is alive and well.

[hansamurai]

I've always considered those thumbsticks. When I hear joystick I look back fondly at the days of Tie Fighter or Falcon 3.0 where you grasped the joystick with your entire hand and it had multiple buttons built in on it and on the base. I really felt like I was controlling the aircraft when using a joystick. Nowadays when using thumbsticks I usually have to configure the game to inverse the Y-axis, something that seems so obvious to me since I grew up using joysticks but it must not be that common anymore.