TrevHead said:
I would say that a lack of buttons on a pad is a problem, especially as devs are trying to squeeze in so many different game mechanics that there's the tempation to just map everything to an action button.
It would be nice if the PS4 and Xbox720 would have pads with an extra couple of face buttons. It's one reason why im so interested in the WiiU's pad. If the games come then maybe everyone will understand how much the lack of buttons is holding us back and Sony and MS will follow suit.
There's nothing stopping MS and Sony from doing the same as the WiiU which has both the touchpad and gamepad. Sega did the same thing years ago with the 6 button megadrive pad for fighter games, now console games have become more like PCs we are needing another change.
You make an interesting point, but I don't think that's really how things are.
Controllers have been steadily increasing the number of buttons as gaming has evolved, and that's allowed games to be more complex. The reason we see so many games simply using one button as an all purpose "action button" is to make the games more accessible. For example Assassin's Creed is far easier to get in to than Mirror's Edge since scaling a line of rooftops essentially equates to holding down the A button. In Mirror's Edge you have to press a button to initiate a jump, a slide or a duck, tucking in your legs, and even cushioning your fall. It doesn't do anything for you and if you fuck up it's your fault, not the game sending you in a random direction because it interpreted the direction you pointed the thumbstick in wrongly. You need to learn how to input the controls better.
The OP is talking more about games that take care of doing things for you. Games that simplify actions and therefore making their interactivity more shallow. More buttons would help to make games have more depth and sophistication, as they have done all the way through the history of gaming, but we don't see games that are easy to control now because we are being held back by controllers. In fact, the opposite is true in some cases. Can you imagine trying to play Street Fighter IV on the NES? It just wouldn't be possible. Whatever there would be instead would be nowhere near as a complex game as SF4 actually is. Fighting games were able to grow and gain more depth over time because consoles were getting controllers with more and more buttons, along with processing power too, of course, but that's beside the point.
But more buttons won't stop games like Assassin's Creed existing, because their control methods are created with a different purpose and audience in mind. In Assassin's Creed they designed it so players don't have to worry about controls, so they can just focus on the experience of the adventure, or what specifically happens to be going on at the time on screen. They want to draw in as many people as possible with that premise, without people having to worry about simply moving about their character. In more complex games, like fighting games, the controls themselves are part of the experience. Learning and performing the delicate tasks needed are part of the gameplay and a draw to the target audience. Unfortunately, this turns many people away. A lot of people find that aspect daunting and just want to play a game that's easy to control but still gives them a great experience. It's this desire to have a broader appeal that's "holding games back", not controllers.
If a game designer wants to appeal to a wider audience they will make controls simpler, or more "automatic" as the OP states. It's not necessarily to do with the number of buttons on a controller. It's probably more accurate to say that what's "holding us back" is the huge development costs of games. Because of these costs games have to make huge amounts back just to make a profit, and to do that they need to sell loads, and of course to do that they need to appeal to more people.
But if we really think about it, Assassin's Creed isn't really that simple either. You have four different types of actions you can do, each mapped to a face button, and four more if you hold down RT to perform "high profile" moves. There's also the dual control stick layout, which many non-gamers find incomprehensible too. Using the relatively simple controls of Assassin's Creed could well be baffling to someone who is used to only the NES controller, to refer back to a previous example.
But I think you have a point when you say the WiiU could shake things up a lot. If they use the touch screen as a place to simply display lots of digital buttons, then there could be great potential there. There might even be a proper RTS game on a console.
