Game Technology – Joysticks vs Enhanced Reality

Game technology is always advancing, some to make nicer looking games, but we always forget that the feel of the controllers and the control system that the games use are the most important part of gaming, so why in over 30 years they have only just started to change, well its time to look into it.

When most people think of games they will at some point think of the humble controller, these days the controllers are not much different than what was made in the beginning, a couple of joysticks and a bunch of buttons. The only change is that there are more buttons and joysticks and that the shape has changed to make it more comfortable to play with.

But these days we have controllers that are capable of sensing how we actually move the controller, allowing us to do real life movements to correspond with what’s on screen, plus video cameras, which allow us to use our body to play games, sans controllers. So why is it not the standard of today’s control systems? The reason is that its finicky to use at times, your movements doesn’t correspond too well with what’s happening on screen well and so the humble gamepad is still the best way to play.

Does it look like the coolest way to play? Nope, the idea that you can swing a controller and have that play out on screen, except instead of a controller your character has a sword is a lot better than pressing a button. Which is why the Wii is the future of game control systems, gamepads and joysticks are dying out and will eventually phase out of gaming, reserved for only old games or for simulator games, where having a joystick is more realistic than waving a controller around.

We will continue to move to motion control tech, till we eventually get to the point where are games are played out in cyberspace, with us jacking into the game directly through our minds, so we can be in a world which feels as real as the world outside the game, the virtual counterpart to our normal reality.