Talk:Comparison of console controllers

Updates/Corrections

Since reading through it, it seems much of this article hasn't been updated with current standards/changes to the systems. I've made the following updates/fixes to the "General" 7th gen section:

• Reorganized to be chronological per all other systems in the list (appears to have been the original authors intent, until someone moved things around for a compyany vs company comparison instead).
  
• Changed DS to 16 players, PSP to 32 (removed infrastructure note, as no other console is referring to online play) for # of controllers (in this case, meaning local multiplayer).
  
• Changed the "Wireless" statements for both the PSP and DS to "Yes, though not as a controller.", as these are issues that crop up when including portable systems as "controllers". You have people interpreting "wireless" as a completely different thing (someone obviously thought these meant internet access, instead of wireless controllers, or were working off old rumors that never panned out to use them as wireless controllers).
  
• Updated 360 for "Expansion" to be "Yes", as the last note left on it was back from when the MS Chatpad had not yet been released. There was no sense in having it yellow with a vague answer, as it's now proven to simply be a full expansion port, and for more than just audio. As well, the "Wireless" was updated to read "Wireless bundled with all systems, wired are available at retail." as all available 360 bundles now come with the Wireless controller standard (Core is no longer sold at retail) as wired controllers are only available if you can specifically find them.
  
• There's been no changes to the Wii/PS3 controllers, so those have been left as is.
  

I don't have time right now, but there's a large numbers of missing contrllolers for the Xbox 360. And I mean, a LOT. Specifically:

• Hori Fight Stick (released in Tandem with 'Virtua Fighter 5', works with all the best fight games on the system)
  
• Hori Flight Stick (released as a package deal with 'Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation')
  
• "Big Button" Controllers (released with 'Scene It!')
  
• 360 Racing Wheel (released back at near-system launch for PGR3 and a number of racing games)
  
• MS Vision Camera (used as input on a variety of games)
  

• There's also a matter of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band Controllers, though they're available on a variety of system with a variety of extra functions, it may be too messy to even attempt to add in to these charts. That's one to debate.
  

• Lastly there's the Sony EyeToy controller that could be listed as well. Definitely things to think about.
  

Oh, and for my 2 cents, I don't think the portable game systems should be under the same tables as everything else, there's too many dual-meaning values that confuse the reader, and I simply don't see a benefit.

TrackZero (talk) 14:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

As an owner of the original PS1 Dual analog controller, it does indeed have depressable/clickable thumbsticks like Dual Shock —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.141.92.21 (talk) 04:25, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Things to Add

I spent about an hour adding a fair amount to this article, but I can still think of things we should include. Apart from filling it out with other controllers from previous systems (the First and Second generations of console are totally absent from the table), we could also think about including the following:

1. Release date (probably identical to console itself, but it definitely helps keep things in perspective)
2. Thumbnails for each controller (?)
3. Third party controllers
4. Joysticks - totally absent here
5. Dimensions
6. Approximate Weight
7. Alternative official controllers: many consoles have come with several different gamepads over time, so it's worth including all the notable alternatives.

Of course, we may have to split this table up into multiple parts. I won't add any more until I have time, and until I'm sure people agree that we need any of the above (or don't need any of what I've already added). So, what think you, unwashed masses? :) RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 11:30, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Oh, and PLEASE help check the factual accuracy of this table. I've never played most of these consoles, so it's certainly possible that I screwed up when adding some of them - I've found a number of mistakes in my own work, so I'm worried there are more to be found. Thanks for the help. :) RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 13:05, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I think we should stick to official controllers. Keep in mind this is only for video game consoles, not PC controllers. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 02:28, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair point. I've also decided to stop adding other controllers for now, on the basis that I think we have the most important ones already. What do you think of my other suggestions? RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 11:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

All light guns have at least one button. How else do you pull the trigger? ;) Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 11:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Good call. ;) I assumed that the trigger was a discrete component - so, the total number of "buttons" in that list would be "total buttons.. minus D-Pad and trigger". I guess the distinction - if any - would be whether the trigger is analog or digital. Either way, we may have to check that the other controllers don't need updating to fit the new definition. RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 12:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe that I could gather some thumbnails of the controllers if you want... Russian Sage 777 00:49, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Certainly, and I could help. However, I don't know how we could put them in the table elegantly. Would we just have a tiny, unhelpful thumbnail of each (although, a little creative photoshopping could fix this pretty well for most of them), or a larger image for each that makes each row unnecessarily large? If we use thumbnails, they'd have to be very well designed, but I'm not confident that it'd be feasible. RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 15:24, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Maybe there could be a section underneath the table with each contoller's name, some info, and a picture of the controller. Then the pictures would not have to fit the table. What do you think about that idea? Oh, before I forget I have a quick question. Are you using the controller dates from the North American release of the controller, or the Japanese? If I know then I might be able to get some dates verified for you. Russian Sage 777 20:56, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

That could work.. we'd have to see how it looked, ey? Maybe we should try it out with just the 7th-gen controllers, just to test the idea. As for the release dates, I'm using the date of its first release, anywhere in the world - it seemed to me that its first public release anywhere would be more important than a specific geographic location. By all means, though, feel free to add alternative dates for country-specific releases (with flags next to them, to denote the country). :) RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 01:09, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'll gather some pictures (I already have pictures for most of the earlier controllers) and we can see how it will look... Russian Sage 777 02:40, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Uhhh... I'm not to familiar with how to upload pictures so I'm just going to put a link to the page where my photos are okay. I also have a word document containing all the sites that I obtained these pictures from. Russian Sage 777 17:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The link to my photos is: http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrowse.asp?folder_id=1683239

I have the links to the websites in my user page. The link to my user page is : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Russian_Sage_777

Thanks for all the help. Russian Sage 777 17:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Those photos on villagephotos are too heavily compressed. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 05:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Added information for TurboGrafx-16 controller. Belknap 03:02, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Split?

Gyah! This table's looking mighty squished on a 1024x768 screen, and that's a *lot* of columns... so I suggest we split them between two categories, as in a number of other comparisons where large numbers of features are involved. I can't think of a way to split them off the top of my head, but something will come along. I'll sleep on it. ;) If anybody else has the time, and/or agrees with me, we should probably make a second table out of this to reduce the compressed nature of this one. RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 12:02, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Following up on this, how about we split the article into two according to the categories: control/features? So:

• D-pad, Analog stick, Buttons, Analog Trigger, Tilt Sensor, Pointer <--- First table
• Expansion, Vibration, Wireless, Microphone, Speaker <--- Second table
• Platform First Released <--- both? Or just the first one?

Do you guys think this split would work? RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 01:29, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow

I can't believe someone really wrote all this! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zerath13 (talk • contribs) 12:41, 3 June 2006

Neither can we. :) RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 01:43, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

First released dates for PS3 controller

Just wondering how November 11, 2006 a day yet to occur has already been slotted under "First released" column. It is yet to be released and is the expected date. Has someone travelled in time to the future and confirmed that Sony will not delay shipping? :-)

Good point, I'd missed that. Since it hasn't yet been released, I've removed it. RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 08:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Stick presses and separating control buttons

In regards to the Sony controllers, as well as the GameCube standard controller and Wavebird (and possibly others), the stick presses as buttons don't seem to be reflected. Also, I think the actual control buttons should be separate from other buttons such as start, select, guide etc. In fact, it should be considered that the DualShocks have more total control buttons than the N64. 4 face + 2 stick + 4 shoulder = 10 versus 6 face + 2 shoulder + trigger = 9 —Deadman1848 10:27, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Good points, both. For the first: How should we represent this in the table? I suppose it would be easiest to simply use {{yes2}} and the text "x, y depressible" (where x is the number of sticks, and y is - funnily enough - the number that can be used as buttons). I guess we could also use "dual-action" or some other adjective, but I don't have any more inspiration this point. I do know that it would probably be too difficult to split this into a new column without introducing a large amount of redundant information, so we should probably rule that option out.

As for the second, would you agree that we should simply add an additional column for that information and split the numbers between the two? Seems easy enough, but we'd have to re-count the buttons for every controller. Dibs not. ;) RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 13:27, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I already have the button count data for most* (I can even give you the names of the function buttons) due to the fact I happened to compile the information myself a few weeks ago before I saw this remarkably similar table. I also have good thumbnails but I don't know about rights and such because I just grabbed them from anywhere and edited/cropped them as needed.

What I have is 'Face', 'Shoulder', 'Trigger', 'Other', (listed as "start, select, mode" for example), 'Total Control' (just a sum) and have just reflected the sticks as "+ x" in the 'Face' field. Eg. for the DualShock "4 + 2".

Whichever you prefer, just tell me what data you need. I have data for:

• NES, Master System, Mega Drive(Genesis), SMD 6-button, SNES, Saturn, PS, Saturn 3d, N64, DualShock, Dreamcast, PS2 (DS2), GameCube, Wavebird, Xbox, Xbox360, PS3, Wiimote, nunchuk

And I don't think the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox should be wireless as it currently says? But I will compare my whole data when I have time. —Deadman1848 17:24, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd just count shoulders and triggers as the same thing, since they are —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.141.92.21 (talk) 05:31, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

buttons

I've changed buttons to digital buttons and analog trigger to analog buttons. Please rearrange the counts accordingly. Please note that light guns like the zapper only have digital buttons, not analog. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 01:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

This introduces many inaccuracies as most of the buttons on sixth-generation consoles are analog, even if they don't have a great deal of range of motion. Ace of Sevens 00:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

XBox face buttons are analog. I will indicate this in the table! -David —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.73.238.75 (talk • contribs) 19:59, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

reorganization

Here is how I propose to reorganize

• Basic info
  • Name
  • Console
  • Date
  • number of controllers per unit
  • wireless/wired connection
  • expadability
• Input
  • d-pad
  • analog stick
  • digital buttons count
  • analog buttons count
  • face buttons
  • shoulder/trigger buttons
  • tilt sensor
  • pointer
  • microphone
• output
  • haptic
  • speaker
  • monitor

Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 01:43, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

General

Name	Platform	First Released	Concurrent controllers	Expansion	Wireless
NES GamePad	Nintendo Entertainment System	July 15, 1983	2 (4 via NES Satellite)	No	via NES Satellite

Input

Name	D-pad	Analog stick	Digital Buttons	Analog Buttons	Face Buttons	Shoulder/Trigger Buttons	Tilt Sensor	Pointer
NES Controller	Yes	No	4	No	4	No	No	No

Output

Name	Haptic feedback	Monitor	Speaker
NES Controller	No	No	No

This sounds good - I've been thinking about ways to reorganise, but this strikes me as by far the best scheme so far. I'll help update and check the counts when I have time (so much school assessment :( ). If you haven't done it by Monday night, I will. RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 11:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I've started the conversion. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 23:12, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... I have a suggestion for further organisation:

Input

	Directional				Action		Button Location		Sound
Name	D-pad	Analog stick	Tilt Sensor	Pointer	Digital	Analog	Face	Shoulder / Trigger	Microphone
NES Controller	Yes	No	4	No	4	No	No	No	No

My reasoning is that the input table is becoming a bit convoluted: there are sub-categories that aren't defined as such, such as the location of each button (without an additional dividing row, this information is confusing and redundant) - I also reorganised the individual columns to fit this new scheme, here. This makes much more sense to me, what thinks you? RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 10:39, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 11:36, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Great, thanks for being so quick to re-org again. RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 12:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

a note on haptic feedback

Haptic feedback can be anything from vibration (the most common) to changing texture on the controller (patents have been filed, I saw on IGN; sorry I don't have the link handy). Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 02:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

DS as a controller

While I don't think the DS is a controller, if you decide it is, it should definitely be put into a new section "Portable Consoles" or "Handheld Consoles", as you also have to include GameBoy, Color, Advance and PSP, at least +Falcon9x5 08:51, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

This suggestion has merit, but how would you suggest that we include such a section in the existing format of the page? Sorry, but I'm meant to be on Wikibreak, so I can't really spend time thinking of a way to do this well. :) RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 08:52, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Easy - sure just add a new section (similar in formatting to the ones at the moment - input or whatever). Some of the columns wouldn't apply, it would (hopefully) work out around the same size as the other sections +Falcon9x5 09:38, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean adding three entirely new tables, or a new section to each table? My suggestion would be (now that I've had a moment to think about it):

General

Consoles
Name	Platform	First Released	Concurrent controllers	Expansion	Wireless
Third Generation Consoles
NES Controller	NES	July 15, 1983	2 (4 via NES Satellite)	No	via NES Satellite
NES Zapper	NES	1984	only in slot 2 paired with a controller	No	via NES Satellite
Portable Systems
Name	Platform	First Released	Concurrent controllers	Expansion	Wireless
Fifth Generation Consoles
Generic Device	Platform	Year	2	No	No
Sixth Generation Consoles
Nintendo DS	Nintendo DS	2004-11-21	1 (integrated)	via GBA port	WiFi to other units

Of course, I'm not sure how good the large text would look. There may be some better way of doing this. Obviously, this would mean the addition of an entirely new section within each table (so we still have three tables, but each is sub-divided into two distinct datasets). Also, the titles of each row would have to placed under each "Console" or "Portable" split, for the sake of aesthetics. RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 10:34, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I actually meant something along these lines (sorry for creating a new heading):

==Handheld/Portable==

Console	First Released	D-pad	Analog stick	Digital Buttons	Expansion	Vibration	Wireless	Tilt Sensor	Speaker
Sixth Generation Consoles
DS	whenever	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
PlayStation Portable	whenever	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No

Obviously, it'll be a bit different, but that's the general idea :) +Falcon9x5 11:00, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

My main reservation against this is that we'd end up with six distinct tables (as I understand it), rather than three. That's a lot of redundancy. Of course, my suggestion is hardly the cleanest, either - maybe CyberSkull can comment on this. Personally, I still prefer my own suggestion, although I can certainly see that yours has its high points (each table would potentially be less cluttered). RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 11:04, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I thought we might have been able to just have four tables in total - but I see your point with six alright.. +Falcon9x5 18:10, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The DS, PSP, GBA, et al are all consoles with integrated controllers. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 05:27, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but they can also act as controllers. Arggh, confusation. -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 07:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Backlog cleared!

I got bored.

Two and a half hours later, I managed to clear the re-org backlog on the article (not including the proposed but unimplemented changes on this talk page). Please check that I didn't screw anything up - there was so much to do, I can't guarantee my work was flawless. RandyWang (^raves/_rants) 08:25, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

"Tilt Sensor" column is misleading

At least, for the PS3 and Wii's controllers it is, not sure of the others. The sensors in those controllers are not inclinometers. They measure not only tilt, but motion in general. They're accelerometers. However, I'm not going to just change the column as I'm not sure how it pertains to the older controllers (like the Powerglove). Anyone? -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 09:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Huh, the column seems to be vandalised as well, or at least mistakenly edit. It's showing the controller's button counts. Looks like it needs fixing anyways. -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 09:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

It used to be called "motion sensor," off the top of my head. I'd prefer if it were replaced with "motion sensor," then the specific entry for each controller read either "no," "full motion" or "tilt only."

Good catch on the shoddy editing, by the way - that's very likely my fault, from when I cleared the backlog a while ago. I'll see what I can do about it. RandyWang (^raves/_{review me!}) 09:12, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that was my screw-up. I'll fix it now. RandyWang (^raves/_{review me!}) 09:15, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem was just that some columns had been switched, so it was easy to fix. All the suggestions you made have now been implemented. RandyWang (^raves/_{review me!}) 09:23, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I've de-linked the Motion Sensor column, as the tilt sensor in the Power glove may not be an accelerometer. I've also gone and linked both the Wii remote and PS3 controller to Accelerometer in that column. Not sure why the Wii one said "Full motion", as the PS3 controller does also have a 3-degree accelerometer (or multiple "lesser" accelerometers). -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 09:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I was under the impression that the PS3 controller could only be used to detect tilt, rather than lateral motion. We may need to take a look for some source that explains what it can/can't be used for. RandyWang (^raves/_{review me!}) 09:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The article for that controller does mention it, and probably has sources, though without sources. They did say that at the PS3 E3 press conference however, when they announced the feature. They also demonstrated it working as so, with the person playing actually moving the controller in addition to tilting it. The main motion-related feature that the Wii controller has that the PS3 one does not is the Lightgun-like capability, not the motion sensing in general. -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 09:37, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Handhelds

I've gone ahead and given the "integrated controllers" in handheld consoles their own section, and changed the DS and PSP entries in the main table to reflect their function as controllers for the Wii and PS3. I'm not sure if the handhelds should be kept in this article, or the information merged to the page Comparison of handheld gaming consoles. Certainly this article has more of a focus on the controls, buttons, and whatnot in particular (it would be some work to reformat the other page to fit this information, or somehow incorporate it nicely. A new "controls" section would be needed, etc.). Handhelds aren't really "controllers" though, hence the desire to really segregate it or get it out of this article. It's mildly confusing otherwise. -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 00:02, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Fully agree with the proposed merge: while they do have a place in this article, they'd be better represented at Comparison of handheld gaming consoles, and a link in the "See also" section of this page. We need to either totally segregate handheld and console controllers, to totally merge them - but it just makes more sense to keep them separate.

There's space at the handheld controllers article to include the kind of information we have here, thankfully. Rather than reformat anything, however, it would be easier to totally transfer our table format, then simply strip any redundant information - that is, create an entirely new table there, at the bottom, using the format we already have. RandyWang (^raves/_{review me!}) 00:24, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Right. I'm thinking: Scrap the first column in the third table of the Handheld's article (the "controls" column), and add columns at the end for wireless and expansion. Then the whole "General" section in this article can be ignored.

A display is also considered pretty mandatory for handhelds, so I'm not perfectly sure how to approach that; whether to move the other article's info into the "Output" table, or to cut the display out of the ouput table. The latter solution leaves it with only two columns, the former puts a big green streak through the table. -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 00:58, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Instead of moving the data and fixing it later, I've moved it to Comparison_of_handheld_gaming_consoles/temp. I'll try to build it up to include all of the handhelds included in the other article, as well as fixing it to fit in better, but it'll take a bit of time, and research. -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 21:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

SIXAXIS or Sixaxis?

It's a small thing, but an IP recently changed the name of the PS3's controller to "Sixaxis". This was a good thing, in that it standardised the name (it wasn't consistent across the board before), but it begs the question: what should we call it, exactly? The options, as far as I can see:

• Wireless Controller (SIXAXIS)™
  • This is the official name, complete with trademark sign.
• SIXAXIS
• Sixaxis

What think we? Daveydweeb (^chat/_patch) 00:49, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Haptic Feedback

I think haptic feedback should be cahnged to a more relative term for game controller, such as rumble feature, rumble, etc68.255.98.17 01:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Pics

It would be nice to feature small pictures of the controls i think --77.99.231.37 (talk) 16:43, 2 May 2010 (UTC)