Game Tecnology

Game Technology

For this blog I am exploring the history of game technology. My first experience of game controllers was the Binatone consol, pictured below.

The controllers that came with this console were built into the actual unit and extended out via a wire. They were a simple design consisting of a single stick with a ball pivot on the end.

The controllers were particularly bad as they were awkward to hold and uncomfortably small.

My next experience of game controllers was the standard joy sticks of several consoles which were the square black joy sticks, with the single orange button. These controllers were used for some time but were later re-designed. The new designs saw the joy stick have multiple buttons and the overall shape of the stick was re-modelled to fit into the hand better.

During the seventies games consoles were ugly looking and many were made from wood, particularly dark mahogany. In the eighties the design seemed to change to favour plastic, but still the overall look of the units were far from nice, In particular the ‘nes’ which resembled a lunch box!

Moving into the nineties we saw a change in design and some style and practicality came into the production of consoles and controllers. There was an introduction of multiple control ports and with the lunch of the Play Station, we saw for the first time the introduction of CD-rom technology. This technology changed the look of consoles as there was no need for the bulky docking bays for cartridges anymore.

I must say that I personally liked the design of the mega drive with its smooth controllers, which were nice to hold and comfortable, however the Play Station design was probably the design that pretty much got it right in terms of overall style look and controller function. The button location, on the controller, was far better than any that I had previously used and the style was better than any other that I had seen to date. Its nearest rival the Xbox had it all wrong, in my opinion, as it was a bit of a throwback to the eighties, with its bulky look.