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.You keep saying what you've done when there's a commerical for the vectrex in this thread that zooms in on how exactly you're wrong.
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.This is fine by me. Nintendo made the analog stick work well enough for it to be widely adopted....
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)....
I can't remember the last time I used a d-pad.
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.
I think their best contribution was saving the gaming industry after atari shock.
So Nintendo introduced console controller rumble as hardware and an integrated game feature, which was then swiped by Sony, then Sony's next console continued to include the swiped feature, but because Sony's next console came out first they now get the credit for it because they were the first to include it at a console launch. Rich stuff.
Oh man and you described the Wii remote as a 'limited pointer device'. Showing your true colours.
I'm afraid I don't follow. If that quoted statement is factual, how is it "desperate"?It's not a real thread about Nintendo controllers without desperate "Nintendo didn't invent anything, all their ideas were implemented years before in controller X for console Y which nobody played or everybody hated" arguments.
Preach. The hatred and need to downplay this companies achievements is one of the strangest regular occurrences on all gaming boards.
The industry as we know it would not exist without Nintendo. Get over it.
That bolded just seems untrue.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.
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
Ratchet & Clank started doing those years earlier. Unless you mean spherical worlds appeared in a Nintendo game before Super Mario Galaxy.I'd say spherical worlds myself.
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.Possible, but it's not likely.
The analog controller that Sony announced in 1995 looks nothing like Nintendo's interpretation- at all. the flight stick is VERY different from what Nintendo was trying to do. The dual analog was simply a scaled down version of the same idea, and had an exclusive mode to emulate it. Ask yourself why a company as cost conscious as Sony was included TWO analog sticks on the dualshock instead of one, when the first game to require two sticks didn't show up until 1999.
It's because the dualshock was meant to be compatible with the titles designed around their dual analog flight stick that went back to 1996.
At the same time, Namco was working on their own analog controller with the NegCon. That one was actually released in 1995 for the PS1, but only really intended to work with their own games. They refined it later with the JogCon in 1998, even though the dualshock and dual analog had long since been available.
Analog control was inevitable with the rise of 3D gaming, and many people were working on them. Its weird to imply that Sony and Namco were just "copying" nintendo since their implementations were all wildly different, and not similar at all to what nintendo was doing.
Sega I might grant you, since their analog pad was single joystick like nintendo's, marketed with a platformer, and never bundled into the system.
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.That bolded just seems untrue.
The hardware is not nearly as impactful without Mario64.
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.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.
No. Here's Atari's Steeplechase, from 1975.I think the concept of "jumping" is
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).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.
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.
So Nintendo introduced console controller rumble as hardware and an integrated game feature, which was then swiped by Sony, then Sony's next console continued to include the swiped feature, but because Sony's next console came out first they now get the credit for it because they were the first to include it at a console launch. Rich stuff.
Oh man and you described the Wii remote as a 'limited pointer device'. Showing your true colours.
"Strawman"? Here's a quote from the OP (emphasis mine):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.
But i wonder, is this invention the most important thing Nintendo made that helped gaming evolve? What other things Nintendo came up with that could be credited as such?
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.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.
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).Most of them weren't popularized by Nintendo.
Analog Stick - hard to say Nintendo popularized it when every controller for the last three generations, including Nintendo's with the Wii as the only exception, are basically clones of Sony's Dual Shock design.
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.
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!"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 (except curiosuly some of Nintendo).
"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.
Who did?Nintendo were the first ones that properly used it and made it successful but they didn't invent it.
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 itselfIn before "THEN WHY DOESNT SWITCH HAVE ONE"
But yes it's one of them for sure, watching the video now!
There were directional buttons used in games as far back as 76 before circular pads were introduced back in the early 80sWho did?
Honestly I find it hard to agree that Nintendo popularised the analogue stick with the N64 because the N64 wasn't very popular.
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.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.
I'm not sure but I think Nintendo made like one or two good games that influenced the industry...
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.
What about the analog stick?
Wasn't me you were responding to...Oh. Now I feel bad for making the mistake of replying seriously to a joke poster.
I think their best contribution was saving the gaming industry after atari shock.
Wasn't me you were responding to...
And look it up. Real History > Nostalgic Revisionist History.
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.
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.
Or my home computer either, it had a joystick that I held in my hand, like the old Atari ones.
I mean, even for 3D games the D-pad is good for things like menu navigation.I can't remember the last time I used a d-pad.
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.
How?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.
Great post.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.