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Is the "Dpad" Nintendo's best contribution to gaming?
- Thread starter nkarafo
- Start date
Liabe Brave
Member
I played Vectrex in the 80s. I never saw commercials. Without being trained one way or the other, I held the controller in my hands and used the stick like a thumbstick. It felt fine.
That work had already been done over a decade earlier. Nintendo didn't need to "make it work well", it was fine already. They were reintroducing the idea, not creating or refining it.
Why only a U.S. chart? The N64 was relevant there for a couple years, but this totally ignores the worldwide truth, where they started far behind and fell further back rapidly. PS1 outsold the entire lifetime sales of the N64 8 months before Ocarina of Time even released; it doubled the lifetime sales several months before Donkey Kong 64 released.Yeah, the PS1 eventually outsold the N64 worldwide by the end of it's run, but that ignores the fact that the N64 was a major success at first (around 1996 and 1997)....
On other topics, I don't think anyone here actually disputes the facts:
- Nintendo did not invent the d-pad
- Nintendo did not invent shoulder buttons
- Nintendo did not invent the analogue stick or the analogue thumbstick
- Some Nintendo versions of these controls were superior to existing types, some not
- No matter their quality, they became the most widely-available versions
Maintenance
Member
I know who made something first isn't necessarily the best argument, but I found this image that can serve as a starting point for discussing some of the innovations and where they originated:
"Who popularized/perfected it" is probably a better question, and we can use this as a springboard to discuss some of these.
You can but it won't be a meaningful discussion because the majority are terrible comparisons that are only brought up to discredit the company. Also, often innovations are not inventions but improvements, perfections and finding pratical use for the invention .
Dr. Black Jack
Member
Are we counting optional accessories or aren't we? Because optional accessories we're talking several years late. Nintendo can claim to be the first console manufacturer shipping non-bundled rumble for the controller as a separate purchase by a few months, but holy shit that's a lot of caveats for "standardizing" compared to every Playstation from later that year having it built-in.
It's not even "next console". Nintendo started including RAM packs with late shipments of N64, they could easily have included Rumble Paks too. Instead it was a Starfox peripheral for several years. That isn't standardizing.
And if the Wiimote isn't a limited pointer device, then why did Nintendo release a wired-only controller with higher compatibility? The Wii U pad was the first standard wireless Nintendo controller which could play every title released for its system, six years after the no-exceptions Sixaxis and seven after the primary-SKU X360 wireless pad.
Liabe Brave
Member
I'm afraid I don't follow. If that quoted statement is factual, how is it "desperate"?
If it's not factual, simply disprove it and move on.
Mr_Antimatter
Member
The problem is half that list wasn't a nintendo first thing, and several others are debatable.
That bolded just seems untrue.
The hardware is not nearly as impactful without Mario64.
I have been gaming for almost 40 years and I don't remember anything like the movement in Mario64 before it came out. Now that is just something we take for granted.
Liabe Brave
Member
Ratchet & Clank started doing those years earlier. Unless you mean spherical worlds appeared in a Nintendo game before Super Mario Galaxy.
Version 3.0
Member
Honestly, I think Nintendo's best contribution is to constantly remind us all that this is a toy business, not to take everything so seriously, and to have some fun.
And that's saying something, considering what a trend-setter they've often been in both hardware and software.
And that's saying something, considering what a trend-setter they've often been in both hardware and software.
Nostremitus
Member
It could be said that the sticks shown off in 1995 look nothing like the N64's because Sony didn't have anything resembling a thumbstick in development... ...until they saw Nintendo's.
And still, their flight stick wasn't even announced until the year after Nintendo showed off their thumbstick.
This would be the same as saying Microsoft standardized the home console refresh with the Scorpio simply because they announced they were copying Sony before the Pro launched.
Liabe Brave
Member
The discussion was about making analogue sticks "work well", which has nothing to do with the software. If it were possible for an enterprising soul to make an adapter, I bet you could play Super Mario 64 acceptably with a Vectrex controller.
Mario's moveset in that game was groundbreaking and an amazing piece of design. But traversal and jumping of a simpler sort had been done before...and before that, even simpler sliding traversal via analog control. Each step built on the previous ones, and I was astonished playing them as they each came along.
Nintendo has done incredible, important things in the field. They just didn't invent a bunch of new physical control types.
No. Here's Atari's Steeplechase, from 1975.
There could easily be even earlier games I haven't heard of.
Without access to Sony's internal documentation, we can't know for sure when work started, or if it was definitely in response to Nintendo (though that's certainly a possibility).
In the end it doesn't matter, though, because the analog thumbstick for home consoles had been used multiple times before either Sony or Nintendo built such a controller.
It's desperate when it involves setting up a strawman argument of Nintendo "inventing" controls in order to deny them all credit for popularizing numerous control methods that are now standard today. No one cares if Vectrex had a analog stick, it was a failed console that didn't standardize or inspire anything, or else all our consoles would still come with their own vector monitors.
Sony's dual analog was revealed working with rumble in Nov 96, same month Nintendo revealed the rumble pak. Seems like it was an obvious idea by that point anyway when the ball was rolling so hard with PC joysticks and what not.
Liabe Brave
Member
"Strawman"? Here's a quote from the OP (emphasis mine):
Right from the start, this thread was about things Nintendo invented. Not refined, not popularized, but actually created. That's reinforced by the linked video, which (erroneously) says "The d-pad...was created by Nintendo in 1982."
People after that started talking about popularization rather than invention, but that's not where the thread began, and the actual origins of many features named is a viable topic.
That's a false inference. It's the same as saying that the Famicom didn't standardize or inspire anything, or else all our consoles would still have the controllers hardwired into them.
The Vectrex stick may not have inspired Nintendo, but the lack of vector monitor in current consoles has no bearing on that question.
I don't think there's any need to consider any of the other points you make just by looking at the bolded. The Dualshock is a modified SNES controller, just like the XBOX controller, and even the SNES one is just an evolution of the NES controller. Button layout, Dpad and shoulder buttons where all in the SNES controller just like they have appeared in all controllers since then (except curiously some of Nintendo).
Boy Wander
Member
D.Lo
Member
Sony got super lucky with the their rushed 'Dual Analogue' and later 'Dual Shock' answers to Nintendo's analogue stick and rumble. At the time it looked like childish one-upmanship. "Nintendo has a analogue stick? Well we have TWO!" "Nintendo has rumble? Well we have DUAL rumble!"
They literally tacked two N64 sticks onto their SNES design, I guess to allow play of the twin flight stick games, but with no idea what to do with them otherwise. Most games that even supported analogue did not use the other stick, unlike the N64's camera control directional input, the c-buttons. Ape Escape eventually came up with some creative uses.
Goldeneye on N64 was the first dual analogue FPS (via a two controller option) but it wasn't until the ubiquitousness of first person shooters in the next generation that the second stick actually became indispensable, but that was years later and obviously not foreseen by Sony, so it was good luck not good planning that they could keep the same frankensteined 'SNES+N64 sticks stuck in the middle' design on the PS2. Their innovation in the space at that point was making all face buttons analogue, which was an entirely stupid idea and such a failure most people don't even know it was there.
Well, Nintendo's specific D-pad could technically be called an invention- that's what patents are for, after all. Obviously that patent was fairly trivial to engineer around, as seen with Sega and Sony, and I don't think many people will think Nintendo invented the idea of four directional inputs in general.
As for the analog stick, which I've seen people arguing about in this thread, I think it's fairly absurd to think Nintendo's N64 controller didn't popularize and standardize the concept. Both Sega and Sony's analog controllers were responses to Nintendo's design, and they were sold as peripherals after the fact, which meant they couldn't be required for most games. Nintendo's usage of analog combined with gameplay, especially as seen in Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye and so on is what popularized the concept and made it the defacto standard for 3D gameplay. Sony then evolved this concept with two analog sticks, and using the right stick to control the camera became the standard when they released the PS2.
Who did?
SlipperyFishes
Banned
I guess because for the Switch it wouldn't make sense. You can't press two directions on a DPad at once and have it respond. Splitting it into buttons makes sense if they wanted each Joycon to be an individual controller in itself
There were directional buttons used in games as far back as 76 before circular pads were introduced back in the early 80s
But it was indeed Nintendo who refined the DPad as we know it today and they held the patent on that specific design.
SM64, Mario Kart 64, Goldeneye, Ocarina of Time, and Smash Bros were all very popular games which sold $5 million plus during that generation which made heavy use of the analog stick, so I don't think this is a very good argument.
Except the N64 anologue stick wasn't an analogue stick at all. Much like the N64 stick, the ps1 dual shock took the mistakes of its predecessor and refined it. Again, the PlayStation popularised the analogue stick, the N64 couldn't do as it wasnt a popular console. It also wasn't even analogue so this I'd all a moot point.
Yea I would pick their games over any hardware.
The d pad is like Motorola, Nokia and their FRAND patents.
Patents that are so essential and needed for basic functionality they cant charge outrageous amounts for other ppl to use them. If I'm interpreting FRAND correctly, lol.
If anything I would pick them making motion control for home console gaming popular vs the d pad if its hardware related.
Ppl mention the D pad and current gaming....its relegated to minimum use now, its replaces by sticks. Has been since at least last gen.
Oh. Now I feel bad for making the mistake of replying seriously to a joke poster.
Airola
Member
Analog stick never beats the d-pad in my little bubble of a world.
I didn't like the Dual Shock when it first came out.
I don't like to play Mario Kart 8 with the stick. I control it with the d-pad.
If a game on the 3DS allows the use of d-pad, I will use it.
Wasn't me you were responding to...
And look it up.
Real History > Nostalgic Revisionist History.EDIT: I'd also like to add that this bullshit fanboy narrative of Nintendo inventing things they didn't, is particularly crazy because everyone knows Nintendo's contribution is GAMES. Dozens and dozens of classic games and franchises and consistent quality.
It's just like the Beatles. The Beatles created the best music there is, and because of that there are a lot of people who claim crazy stuff like they brought rock and roll to the world and popularised it, or that they were the first to wrote their own songs, which is again, a total revisionist lie.
DXB-KNIGHT
Member
Hey let's look at each other and ignore the game
They didn't. This is a myth. Outside the North American Atari crash, the industry didn't suddenly vanish. All the Atari crash did was force out thousands of bandwagon shovel-ware developers in America, which was healthy. Home computers existed before and after the Atari crash, and they were highly successful during the 1980s and early 1990s. New games continued to be made, arcades continued to operate, technology continued to advance. Other than Atari products ending up in bargain bins in Europe and Japan there really was no noticeable video game crash in these regions.
Wasn't me you were responding to...
And look it up.
Your implied argument that only the most popular console of any generation can popularize anything, and also that this popularity is entirely unrelated to how the thing is actually implemented and used in the games for that console, is one of the most mind-numbingly facile fanboyisms I've seen on this site. Taking this logic to its natural conclusion would lead to the argument that the PS2 popularized analog face buttons, or that the Wii popularized controller condoms.
manueldelalas
Time Traveler
The importance of the Dpad is that it popularized the way we hold controllers today; before the NES, controllers were things you put in the coffee table and played with your index and middle fingers, or index and thumb; or even the whole hand over it.
I know a lot of people that played the NES this way, and even the Gameboy. With the shoulder buttons on the SNES, the standard was finally set in stone, never to change again; controllers were things you held and that's it.
The thumbstick is an evolution of this same idea, they needed a way to control a character in 3D and the Dpad wasn't good enough, they came up with the thumbstick.
I'm with you OP, one of the definitive innovations of the industry.
People saying the dual analog PS controller is a scaled down version flight controller are just... I'm pretty sure it's the same people that argued the PS Move controller wasn't a direct response to the Wii controller (come out, I know some of you still exist). I'll just say to them; look at your fucking PS controller; look at it's main input. Hey! it's still a Dpad.
I know a lot of people that played the NES this way, and even the Gameboy. With the shoulder buttons on the SNES, the standard was finally set in stone, never to change again; controllers were things you held and that's it.
The thumbstick is an evolution of this same idea, they needed a way to control a character in 3D and the Dpad wasn't good enough, they came up with the thumbstick.
I'm with you OP, one of the definitive innovations of the industry.
People saying the dual analog PS controller is a scaled down version flight controller are just... I'm pretty sure it's the same people that argued the PS Move controller wasn't a direct response to the Wii controller (come out, I know some of you still exist). I'll just say to them; look at your fucking PS controller; look at it's main input. Hey! it's still a Dpad.
To the people who claim N64 could not have popularised analog controls because the system was vastly outsold by PS1: Mario 64 outsold ALL single PS1 exclusives off the back of analog controls, so yes it DID. Not to mention games like MK64 and Goldeneye 64 that hang aroung similar sales figures too.
Pope Benedict XVI
Member
Re: The analogue stick
The key insight that happened at Nintendo was the link between analogue control and 3-diminsional gaming.
That insight was the innovation. The actual creation of an analogue stick requires no great insight, and nor does the idea that an analogue controller could be used for video games.
But the link between analogue control and 3D games specifically was a great insight. Of course, it seems obvious to us now. But I can tell you when the Playstation and Saturn were released no one was complaining about the lack of an analogue stick. That is simply because the insight that links analogue control to 3-dimensional games was entirely absent at that time.
The key insight that happened at Nintendo was the link between analogue control and 3-diminsional gaming.
That insight was the innovation. The actual creation of an analogue stick requires no great insight, and nor does the idea that an analogue controller could be used for video games.
But the link between analogue control and 3D games specifically was a great insight. Of course, it seems obvious to us now. But I can tell you when the Playstation and Saturn were released no one was complaining about the lack of an analogue stick. That is simply because the insight that links analogue control to 3-dimensional games was entirely absent at that time.
Ok I can agree with this overall post (d pad to thumb stick) ...but....
I never used the joystick on my Atari 2600 like this. It was very much a handheld controller.
Coleco vision too.
SporeCrawler
Member
z-triggering in zelda. it changed 3D third person games forever
Or my home computer either, it had a joystick that I held in my hand, like the old Atari ones.
Lightning Lord
Banned
I mean, even for 3D games the D-pad is good for things like menu navigation.
AlephAlpha
Member
Very good post.
Also, doing something first often does not hold any value in itself. It is more about making it seem natural, making it work effortlessly and just better than other options.
That's why Nintendo, and in particular Yokoi, are considered great innovators and it is also why, despite really disliking apple products, I would easily admit they invented or revolutionized the smartphone, even though all the concepts were there before. They were just not combined and utilised so ingeniously before.
D.Lo
Member
Interestingly the tech behind Nintendo's d-pad is the breatkrough too - it used rubber membranes beneath a plastic button. Calculator button tech, adjusted into a combined single directional pad. Before that game and watch games used the rubber membranes directly, but Donkey Kong introduced the hard plastic top which made it roll and pop perfectly.
Before and even some controllers after that mostly used terrible bending metal leaf connectors, they die very quickly.
Actually the first revision of the Famicom still had rubber BA buttons, it was in 1984 that the hard buttons were added.
Oh wrapped in your hand. That's true, but it wasn't a thumb stick. It sort of a hand-held arcade cab joystick.
Before and even some controllers after that mostly used terrible bending metal leaf connectors, they die very quickly.
Actually the first revision of the Famicom still had rubber BA buttons, it was in 1984 that the hard buttons were added.
How?
Oh wrapped in your hand. That's true, but it wasn't a thumb stick. It sort of a hand-held arcade cab joystick.
Great post.