Best Video Game Controller Innovations

With the recent release of the PlayStation Move – not to mention the forthcoming Microsoft Kinect – motion control is making us party like it's 2006 again. However, gaming control has taken a long and meandering road to get us there. A lot of these innovations ruled. Some (Power Glove, cough) sucked. Let's take a look at the best of the best. These are the best game controller innovations in home gaming history.
 

Joystick - Atari 2600 (1977)

Long before it was spelled with a "q", the humble joystick revolutionized the home gaming industry. Before the joystick, the Pong wheel was the height of gaming control. That rusty old wheel has long since sailed into the sunset but the basic tenants of the joystick still remain a large part of console gaming. "E.T." would have controlled better with more than one button, however.

Multiple buttons and the D-pad - NES (1985)

The Nintendo Entertainment System saved a flagging game industry from extinction in 1985. Their innovative controller was one major reason the console did so well. In fact, many of the design innovations premiered here are still in use today. Multiple face buttons? Check. D-pad for directional control? Check. Just take a look at the modern Wiimote and you'll see the large debt we all owe to this grandfather of the modern game controller. I just made a lot of you feel old, didn't I? Ok fine. Great Uncle.

Turbo - SNES/Genesis (1990)

This functionality has fallen by the wayside in recent years, but it's still pretty cool. How could we ever achieved gold medal status in "Track and Field" without it? The concept is simple: Hold the button down and it goes into turbo mode, pushing the button for you at a hyper-fast rate. This was great for sports games and fighting games. Some say this was cheating. Others say it was just saving us all from carpal tunnel syndrome.

Shoulder Buttons - SNES (1991)

These were just some more buttons wedged into a new place. No big deal, right? Wrong. It’s all in the placement. Placing them on the shoulder of the controller makes them easy to press and easy to remember their location. No hunt and peck necessary. This particular innovation started with the SNES but really grew wings during the PlayStation era. It continues today, in an evolved fashion, as trigger buttons in today's consoles.

Analog Control and Trigger Button - N64 (1996)

The system that ushered in 3D gaming(The first kind) needed an all-new control scheme. D-pads wouldn’t cut it in a three dimensional world. Mario needed subtlety to move around his new world. While this wasn’t the first analog stick, it was the first one that stuck. Look at it as a super-sensitive joystick put through a shrink-ray. If you pushed it softly, your avatar would move slowly. The opposite also held true. Additionally, the company threw a trigger button on the back of the controller. This became a boon for first-person-shooters, including "Goldeneye" and "Perfect Dark," two of the system's best games.

Rumble - N64 (1997)

Rumble functionality, or force feedback to you nerds, is one of those innovations that seems like not that big of a deal. Your controller rumbles when you do certain things. Big whoop, right? However, in practice, it ended up notching the immersion level up ever so much. Nothing says impending death like your hand violently shaking as you got shot over and over. Again, Nintendo perfected and popularized a pre-existing concept. Thirteen years later, the functionality is a proud part of every modern game controller

Wireless control - GameCube (2003)

Companies had been taking stabs at wireless control for years before the WaveBird hit the scene. Some of the early technology worked, some of it didn't. None of it really caught on until Nintendo popularized the concept with their WaveBird controller for the Gamecube. This was the first wireless video game controller that actually worked really well, and helped prove just how much wires suck. The gaming industry helped prop up that soulless wire industry for far too long. Now let’s get on them about their inexplicable love for the battery industry. I’m looking at you Xbox and Wii.

Motion Control - Nintendo Wii (2006)

The house that "Wii Sports" built helped signal yet another revolution in gaming control. It never quite lived up to the initial hype of "do anything like you would in real life," but there sure has been quite a few great motion-controlled games. There has also been quite a few mini-game collections that caused the suicide rate among gamers to spike. Wii's innovative controls allowed Nintendo to gain an advantage in the console wars by attracting more casual gamers, forcing Microsoft and Sony to go back to the drawing boards and consider their own use of motion controls. And that brings us to...

PlayStation Move - PS3 (2010)

This is more of a tangential innovation over the Wii, but it's still pretty cool. It features the functionality of a Wii MotionPlus but with even better accuracy via the use of a tracking ball that connects to a PlayStation Eye camera. The Eye camera also helps with augmented reality applications that has your Move controller transforming into different objects on your television.

Kinect - Xbox 360 (2010)

This tech could turn some heads (literally) when it launches this November. It takes motion control to the next level by offering a completely controller-free interface. You simply move your body around like a wild maniac and use voice commands in order to play games, control the UI and more. It remains to be seen if the lack of anything tactile to hold on to will end up being a saving grace or a hindrance. Still, all eyes are on Microsoft later in the year.

As video game systems come and go, so do the control innovations. Look for eventual hardware updates for all three console makers. Who knows what the future will bring on our eventual collision course with Holodeck technology.

You can follow Lawrence Bonk on Twitter @Sidescrollers

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