Daveman said:
I'm glad someone finally mentioned controller design. Though not unexpected, I'm a little disappointed it didn't really get mentioned between the Big 3.
However, I'm going to disagree with you, Daveman. The controller design, particularly for the 360 is not pretty damn awesome, or user friendly -- to someone like me. I've got really small hands, and as much as I enjoy the 360, it's controller is often problematic for me when it comes to games. I can't imagine what it'd be like for me to play on the original XBox, dealing with an even larger controller.
Let's look at Guitar Hero for a second. It was a lot of fun at first, but I got bored after I started mastering songs on medium, but couldn't perform anywhere near as well on hard, let alone expert. No, it has nothing with my ability to play rhythm-based games -- I wouldn't have been able to get into my college's music major program if it were that. I had to pass exercises speaking one rhythm and tapping out another in a completely different meter, Guitar Hero is easy by comparison. However, in Guitar Hero, reaching that dreaded orange button required a physical shift of my entire hand (instead of a couple fingers) in its direction, and that few seconds of disorientation is costly mid-song. In this case, practice mode only gets you so far. There was a dissonant gap between what I could mentally understand the game asking me to do, and what I physically had to perform to do it successfully.
Look at something more recent. (For me and my preferences) Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is the most fun I've had gaming in a while, but I also have it on the 360. Having not played the previous installments, I'm having to learn everything from scratch -- and the challenge is also part of the fun. But it's another case where I lose time on some of the technical executions. Again, not because I'm incapable of "getting it," but when some of the more complicated button patterns involve moving all over the controller, it involves my entire hand moving all over the controller. My hand stretches to curve around the bumpers instead of resting there naturally, which means there's a lot less maneuverability in-between. (And at the moment, I don't have the money to invest in trying a stick.)
Now, before accusations start flying along the lines of why don't I play on a different console, or something with half-formed logic: I don't believe that my console preferences should be completely limited based on someone's size. That, and consoles are expensive -- If I already invested time and money into one console, I'm not keen on dropping a bunch of money I don't have to reinvest in everything because I enjoy one or two games that might be a little extra harder for someone like me to play. That's silly. I still have fun gaming, though it might be something to keep in mind for if there's ever a next-next-generation.
My question is this: is it far out of the technological realm for controller designs to go the line of baseball bats, bowling balls, and stringed instruments and be sized? Controllers, now in S, M, and L!