Ideas for next Gen Controllers

[Kyle Meadows]

I miss the old fighter-pilot type controllers. Hand movement for direction and/or speed, trigger button(s) for firing/activating, Thumb buttons up top for additional activation butttons.

Yeah, I'm old, I know, but I still think they were better controllers, and it left your left hand open for another gamepad controller and/or keyboard interaction (depending on platform of course)

Can you post an image link for that? It sounds interesting.

Sadly I haven't seen many since Atari went under. They were popular after that as a specialized controller in PC based flight sims for a while, but those seem to have disappeard to. There is a picture of one using the Atari standard here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joystick

To me it was very intuitive. It still works for fighter pilots/aircraft today, even with all their fancy toys. I'm not sure why the current standard controller is so popular.

I like how insanely bad ass that is. If t could be simplified and then, like you said, have a second extension for the other hand, it would be beastly. Of course, this would require both be secured properly.

 

[everythingbeeps]

Controllers are fine. It ain't broke, don't fix it. That twisting thing of yours will cause more problems than it fixes.

If you want more buttons, that's one thing. I don't think we need more, but I'm sure they could find a place for one or two more. But adding some stupid new gimmicky way of interacting with a controller...we don't need that. Motion controls are already threatening to ruin video games as it is.

 

[Kyle Meadows]

Wow, that's funny. I tell its a gimmick, and you got all butt hurt dude. Get over yourself. I didn't say anything offensive. Those links were long because they were Google links. That how Google images work. I do know what E3 is. I dare say I watch it quite a bit more than you. Its still a gimmick. A game is designed to played either with a controller, or a keyboard mouse setup. Do you realize the cost and extended development time required to incorporated full motion control into a game, nonetheless connect? A lot. It reduces profits buy a large margin. You want to call me a noob too? Cute, buddy. Its funny. Look, I really don't want to think that you're an Xbox fanboy, so please tell me you aren't. But you need to realize if its tagged on, its a gimmick. The Wii is a gimmick. The Move is a gimmick. The Kinect is a gimmick. They aren't the future-- their experiments that will be incorporated into the future. Now, you honestly think I wouldn't take into account the twisting motion being done accidentally? Its called a prototype, even your precious Kinect had one. It was called playing outside. If you want to come in here and tell me that my idea I wanted to share with other is a bad idea, then say so. Tell me its a bad idea, and offer something constructive. If not, leave.

Exactly what do you know about profit margins? Do you even know a ballpark number that would cost Xbox to make a game compatible with Kinect? Or was "a lot" the figure you came up with from your expert calculations? A game is not necessarily designed to be used just with mouse or controller, there are already plenty of games made for the sole purpose of the Kinect that cannot be played with either aforementioned control.

Yea, I am calling you a noob. A noob would call entire platforms and integrated facial recognition a gimmick while they sit there and get all wet over their idea to add a spinning dial onto controllers. You have a pretty odd definition of gimmick.

I did say it was a bad idea. I told you that all platforms are largely leaning towards motion technology. Controllers have pretty much reached their peak, and turning them into a Bop-It, isn't going to fly over well with hardcore gamers. And if you think your controller would actually be anything but a non-selling third party accessory...then I'm not the one who should get over themselves.

What really funny here is that you start of by trying to use my language to discredit me. Yes, I said 'a lot.' Big deal. What's dumb is your apparent assumption that it takes no money to add an extensive layer of coding to react in the exact way a control would by precisely detect human movement. This requires first that programmers spend days get the lines perfect, so that bugs and glitches are minimal. Of course, they need human feed back, so then they hire beta testers. These beta testers sometimes need weeks to locate all the bugs, and then they send error reports and fix them, and then retest, retest, and retest. This takes hours. Hours cost money. And all of that on top of developing the core game to work on two different platforms. Fun fact: They cut Future Soldier from the PC. They said because 95% would pirate the game. This implies that they can't afford that profit loss from porting it from consoles. Why is that? Certainly if they hadn't put all those man hours into testing and retesting the Kinect, they may have had incentive to do the PC version. And on top of that, the time and money spent on Kinect, even if it was never going to PC, could have been spent refining other aspects of the game and even adding extra content.
And I really didn't even want to dignify your second paragraph with a response, but here it goes: we've already had facial recognition software. If had it back into the early 2000s. This is fact. And yeah, I can gimmicks gimmicks. How many hard core games are on the Wii? Other than exclusives, not many. How long did it take the first Modern Warfare to hit the Wii? They re-encoded the whole game to Wii motion controls. The games that came out on PS3 have Move 'support.' The ones that were entirely move based did not do well over all. And while Kinect sold well last Christmas, there is a sharp decline in units sold this year. That's a gimmick. A controller you twist to pause to free up buttons on it for maximization? Much less of a gimmick.
And you want to talk about hardcore gamers? They hate motion controls. At least, the majority does. Ask an actual hardcore gamer how he feels about the Wii. If he has one, its for the exclusives or entertaining party games. You think they'd be bothered by having more buttons for combos, or more buttons to shoot people with, or buttons to perform actions with? You must think they're fine with standing up and and making movements to get their gun. A lot of us DON'T want that. Ergo, a gimmick. Gamers are always looking for ways to squeeze more from an experience. not all of them want a new one. So I suggest a twist-able controller-- and suddenly I'm wet over it by calling your precious Kinect a gimmick. Even my friends that love the Kinect say its a gimmick.

 

[Dyllbert]

Actually, the keyboard and the mouse are the best way to play almost every game (excluding platformers maybe, and racing for sure).

Platformers are great on a keyboard. The first PC game I ever played was a platformer, and lots since, up to Prince of Persia.

Driving and flying are total bullshit with a keyboard, though, which is why we have so many awesome joysticks, wheels and pedals available.

Did I mention PC gaming is awesome?

I did say platformers (MAYBE). And yes there are lots of great joysticks, etc... I just declined to mention them. And yes PC gaming is awesome, and the best, forever.

 

[Joccaren]

The whole Sci-Fi thing is that, Sci-Fi. Yes, we are bringing some of those ideas into reality, but they don't function the way they do in Sci-Fi (You don't see people in Sci-Fi madly waving there arms about trying to get it to recognise they are moving, or take the correct command), and it will be cheaper to go out and do the real thing for a long time yet. Want a FPS with you as the controller? Play Paintball or Laser Skirmish. Racing game with you as the controller? Over here the local racing tracks will let you have a drive around for a small fee. Sure, you don't get the same areas as you will in games, but RL is far more immersive than any Motion controller will ever be, especially within our life span.

As to how would you sell a controller, the same way you sell a gaming mouse over a normal mouse: More responsive, faster reacting, easy adjustments that you don't have to learn actions for, you don't have to put as much effort into carrying out actions as you would otherwise, ect. There is always things that controllers with more buttons will do better. With the current technology, imagine playing an RPG and getting your character to cast the right spell. It would be horrid.

In present time, Motion Controls are a gimmick used to earn money of the 'Wow, I've seen this in Sci-Fi' mindset. If it is developed enough, it may transcend that and become a reasonable form of controller, but currently it is inferior in almost every way to conventional controllers, and I doubt the companies are doing it to push forward technology. They are run by bank checks, not well wishes for a Sci-Fi future.

They dont function like they do in SciFi...yet. The Tech JUST came out, it needs time to grow. And if I want a FPS with me as the controller i dont play paintball, i use real guns and go hunting.

Of course they don't function like they do in Sci-Fi, as that is Sci-Fi. Quite often there is some misunderstood science behind their 'innovations', and the differing arrays of motion controls in Sci-Fi provide a number of possibilities, most if not all of which I do not see working. The technology on the whole carries a lot of barriers that will take a lot of money to overcome. That money will come in part from the company, in researching ways to make it work, and in part from the customer - paying for that research and the numerous components they will need to have a properly interactive motion control system. In addition, so long as we use cameras, things like lighting and other motions in the room will be a problem. You can work towards fixing them, but problems with them will continue to pop up.
And if you want a battle experience against intelligent opponents, you will play Paintball or Laser Tag as shooting people with guns is generally frowned upon, except in war (But going out and getting a reasonable risk of death on some battlefield is not exactly appealing...)

You cant compare gaming mice to platform controllers. The mouse is only half a controller, you use a kayboard with a hundred additional buttons. How would a switch that opens up menus going to make it "less effort" into executing actions? And why would a switch that opens up menus allow your character in an RPG make them cast the right spell? When in all the RPGs Ive ever played...already do that. You arent selling something thats more responsive or faster reacting, or going to revolutionize controllers. Youre selling an annoyingly placed 'Select' button. A function that will easily break or interfere with the players hands when trying to hit another button.

You can compare anything to anything, you just don't compare them the same way. The comparison is how do mice and keyboard sell, when console controls are that much more comfortable (For some), has fewer buttons to worry about, and is without the 'problems' that a controller would apparently have over motion controls.
And why would a quick flick of a finger be considered less effort than waving an arm? Think about it. A quick flick of a finger, an entire arm movement.
Why is pressing one button, or flicking one switch (Not necessarily menus, though usually thanks to the lack of buttons on a controller) be better and more accurate for getting your character to cast a spell than waving your arms about or shouting in a specific way? Recognition. With the controller, it only has to recognise you pushed that button/buttons. With motion controls, there is, with today's technology, a pretty reasonable chance that it will think you have made a different motion, or said a different thing, causing you to potentially cast the wrong spell. That is something that would not make anyone doing a high level boss fight that requires a specific type of spell to kill happy, as they would have lost all of their progress because the game glitched.
The only way that hitting 'select' on a controller is going to interfere with hitting any other button is if you have clumsy fingers. I rarely - about twice a year - use controllers, yet every time I do I have no problems hitting the button I want to. When I use motion controls and voice recognition, it almost always picks up the wrong thing. Part of this is technological limitations that will be expensive for the consumer to overcome, and part of it is the differing nature of each individual human. I won't make a gesture exactly the same as you do. It will be similar, but with a few things that my body will do that your's will not, that we did differently whilst learning the motion. These things come to the forefront in motion controls, where the movement detections have to be generic enough that everyone's individual style of performing them will be recognised correctly, yet not so generic that it becomes easy to mistake one motion for another, or take any motion as a specific one. If such a perfect fit line between the two exists, we have not hit it yet, and likely will not for a fair amount of time.
That is the advantage controllers have over motion controls: There is less effort in moving a finger as opposed to an arm, and they are less prone to picking up the wrong command. They are things I do not see them losing to motion controls any time soon.

No one pushes technology for the sake of technology, unfortunately. There is always a main motive, but the progression of technology is a large bi-product.

Yet what happens with this and next generation motion controls when not enough people use them to satisfy the companies making them? They cease to be developed, and that technology grinds to a halt until some indie developer manages to get it working many years down the track. That is a strong possibility for motion controls with the large number of gimmicky games out at the moment. Companies are making some 'true' games motion controlled, but a great many people have been lost after that initial lot of gimmicks and shovel ware.

 

[Gmans uncle]

DONT POST IT.... DONT POST IT!!!... NOOOOO I CANT RESISSSSSTTTT!!!!!

Yeah, I have no bloody idea. probably something with touch screens

 

[gideonkain]

The controller has come along way, the left analog is superior to WASD for movement...it's true, an analog stick can have a thousand different forward velocities a keyboard has 2.

In a lot of PC games, the Left Shift is dedicated to Run which can be accomplished by simply applying more pressure to a analog stick.

The Right Analog stick is a joke when compared to the Mouse: auto aiming systems, curving bullets, the fact that Uncharted 3's gun play got brow beaten into submission.

With this in mind, the best next gen console would have a "left side" with a Analog and a clicky D-Pad and the "righ tside" would have to emulate a mouse.

Would a trackball work in a controller? In it's current incarnation, No.
But if it had some resistance I could see it being very effective

 

[Conor Hildebrandt]

So, I was playing Skyrim on my PS3. As many of you who own it know, the circle button opens the menu. Well, perhaps it is only because my controller is damaged beyond repair, but I noticed that if I twist it the right way on the right side the menu opens. So then, I had a thought: What if this could be incorporated into a next gen controller? Think guys: to open the menu no longer takes a button. Merely twist either side of the controller. That means every button can be used for an action, thus optimizing the players experience. What do you think? And do you guys have any other ideas?

This already exists my friend, it's called the Razer Hydra. I use this for Skyrim right now and the it's nice for navigating menus because you can just hold the left bumper then tilt your hand to go to whichever menu you need (Tilt up for level up, right for inventory, left for magic and down for map) and there are several other gestures for various actions such as jumping, crouching and sheathing your weapons. It's still early in development and most games you have to use the beta control schemes that sixense releases themselves but when they finally update it so you can update control schemes on the fly it's going to be the best controller for most games out there. It's hard to believe a motion controller can rival a mouse in precision but the hydra honest;y does.

 

[ThePuzzldPirate]

I like that controllers as they are, just somehow split them in two halves have have them work wireless. If the Wii showed me anything, not having the controller scrunched in front of your body is amazingly comfortable.

 

[Wushu Panda]

What really funny here is that you start of by trying to use my language to discredit me. Yes, I said 'a lot.' Big deal. What's dumb is your apparent assumption that it takes no money to add an extensive layer of coding to react in the exact way a control would by precisely detect human movement. This requires first that programmers spend days get the lines perfect, so that bugs and glitches are minimal. Of course, they need human feed back, so then they hire beta testers. These beta testers sometimes need weeks to locate all the bugs, and then they send error reports and fix them, and then retest, retest, and retest. This takes hours. Hours cost money. And all of that on top of developing the core game to work on two different platforms. Fun fact: They cut Future Soldier from the PC. They said because 95% would pirate the game. This implies that they can't afford that profit loss from porting it from consoles. Why is that? Certainly if they hadn't put all those man hours into testing and retesting the Kinect, they may have had incentive to do the PC version. And on top of that, the time and money spent on Kinect, even if it was never going to PC, could have been spent refining other aspects of the game and even adding extra content.

I don't have to rely on your poor language skills to discredit you, however, if you cannot even proof read a forum post how do you expect to proofread schematics on your "prototype"?

When did I ever assume it takes no money to encode a game for Kinect? You try and use words like "cute" towards me as if you think you're coy. Yet you find yourself in a discussion, attempt to make a decent argument for your case, and instead of quoting actual figures to support your side... you simply state, "a lot". Like some 5 year old trying to describe how many jelly beans are in the jar. You seem to have general knowledge of how a game is created, but nothing more you couldn't of learned from checking out Wikipedia. I'm sure it does cost "a lot" of money, but where is your data that proves coding for the Kinect costs the company a tremendous amount more past the INITIAL coding cost?

I see you also do not know the difference between 'imply' and 'in my opinion'. Let me show you a real implication:
Fun Fact: 1 out of 5000 inventions have successful product launches. Black Enterprise, June 1, 1999.
This implies your little invention will fail.

And I really didn't even want to dignify your second paragraph with a response, but here it goes: we've already had facial recognition software. If had it back into the early 2000s. This is fact. And yeah, I can gimmicks gimmicks. How many hard core games are on the Wii? Other than exclusives, not many. How long did it take the first Modern Warfare to hit the Wii? They re-encoded the whole game to Wii motion controls. The games that came out on PS3 have Move 'support.' The ones that were entirely move based did not do well over all. And while Kinect sold well last Christmas, there is a sharp decline in units sold this year. That's a gimmick. A controller you twist to pause to free up buttons on it for maximization? Much less of a gimmick.

Yes we had facial recognition software back then. The first tablet PC was created by Microsoft in 2002 and wasn't really accpect until Steve Jobs brainwashed everyone into thinking he did in 2010. Im sorry, when someone states the obvious but not actually relevant I feel I have too as well.

Sold well last Christmas is an understatement. It sold 8 million units in the first 60 days on the market and shipped 10 million units by March 9, 2011. It won the Guiness World Record for "fastest selling consumer electronics device". [link]http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Kinect-Confirmed-As-Fastest-Selling-Consumer-Electronics-Device/blog/3376939/7691.html[/link]
This implies most people already have one and have not needed to buy a second. As for the gimmick statement, Kinect won T3's "Gadget of the Year" and "Gaming Gadget of the Year", additionally Popular Mechanics ranked it #2 in "The 10 Most Innovative Tech Products of 2011". So forgive me if I'm having a hard time drooling over something that spins to bring up menus...

And you want to talk about hardcore gamers? They hate motion controls. At least, the majority does. Ask an actual hardcore gamer how he feels about the Wii. If he has one, its for the exclusives or entertaining party games. You think they'd be bothered by having more buttons for combos, or more buttons to shoot people with, or buttons to perform actions with? You must think they're fine with standing up and and making movements to get their gun. A lot of us DON'T want that. Ergo, a gimmick. Gamers are always looking for ways to squeeze more from an experience. not all of them want a new one. So I suggest a twist-able controller-- and suddenly I'm wet over it by calling your precious Kinect a gimmick. Even my friends that love the Kinect say its a gimmick.

I know you "hardcore" gamer types. You're right, you dont like anything actually innovative or new. Probably because your intellect cannot handle the pressure of acceptance. Let me take this time to address your comment on CoD MW and Wii. I used to love the CoD series, but its gone downhill. It's become the Madden of FPS. Every single year a new one comes that looks exactly the same as the previous...and every year people act like a miracle happened. Im tired of cookie cutter games and it sickens me they do so well. Why did Nintendo take so long to accept CoD? Because they like to push the limits of their devices. Instead of making extra buttons to bring up menus, they developed 3D technology in a handheld device that doesn't even require glasses. Nintendo doesn't bother as much with fads because they're busy with actually making something new.

 

[Roxor]

The controller has come along way, the left analog is superior to WASD for movement...it's true, an analog stick can have a thousand different forward velocities a keyboard has 2.

In a lot of PC games, the Left Shift is dedicated to Run which can be accomplished by simply applying more pressure to a analog stick.

The Right Analog stick is a joke when compared to the Mouse: auto aiming systems, curving bullets, the fact that Uncharted 3's gun play got brow beaten into submission.

With this in mind, the best next gen console would have a "left side" with a Analog and a clicky D-Pad and the "righ tside" would have to emulate a mouse.

Okay, this is making me think of a couple of roughly cylindrical controllers with straps to go around your hands. One for the left hand with a joystick controlled by the thumb and eight buttons controlled by the fingers. The one for the right hand serving as a 3D motion sensor with a button for each finger and a scroll-wheel under the thumb. Is that about it?

 

[R3VOLU7ION]

I think the only thing I would do to a controller is something similar to the Wii u. It might be the same actually I haven't really looked into it too much. But I would have a touch screen in the middle of the controller (maybe not as big as the Wii u's) which would display the menus constantly. I don't know though, it's just a thought.

 

[GiglameshSoulEater]

I think this was discussed years ago when the PS3 first came out, but what about a controller that actively changes temperature depending on the context of the game itself? If you're in a cold area, the controller goes cold. If you're in a hot area or get hurt, the controller heats up. It'd be cool if when you're firing a turret and the gun heats up, the controller gets hotter gradually.

Might post safety risks or seem gimmicky, but when done right, this could enhance immersion. Like motion controls in a way. What do you guys think?

That sounds like a badass idea. Like the rumble feature, but temperature.

I believe they are testing materials that use small electric currents to change how something, such as a smartphone screen feels. If they added those to a controller with the temperature thing above...

epic, and much better than bloody motion controls.

 

[Kyle Meadows]

What really funny here is that you start of by trying to use my language to discredit me. Yes, I said 'a lot.' Big deal. What's dumb is your apparent assumption that it takes no money to add an extensive layer of coding to react in the exact way a control would by precisely detect human movement. This requires first that programmers spend days get the lines perfect, so that bugs and glitches are minimal. Of course, they need human feed back, so then they hire beta testers. These beta testers sometimes need weeks to locate all the bugs, and then they send error reports and fix them, and then retest, retest, and retest. This takes hours. Hours cost money. And all of that on top of developing the core game to work on two different platforms. Fun fact: They cut Future Soldier from the PC. They said because 95% would pirate the game. This implies that they can't afford that profit loss from porting it from consoles. Why is that? Certainly if they hadn't put all those man hours into testing and retesting the Kinect, they may have had incentive to do the PC version. And on top of that, the time and money spent on Kinect, even if it was never going to PC, could have been spent refining other aspects of the game and even adding extra content.

I don't have to rely on your poor language skills to discredit you, however, if you cannot even proof read a forum post how do you expect to proofread schematics on your "prototype"?

When did I ever assume it takes no money to encode a game for Kinect? You try and use words like "cute" towards me as if you think you're coy. Yet you find yourself in a discussion, attempt to make a decent argument for your case, and instead of quoting actual figures to support your side... you simply state, "a lot". Like some 5 year old trying to describe how many jelly beans are in the jar. You seem to have general knowledge of how a game is created, but nothing more you couldn't of learned from checking out Wikipedia. I'm sure it does cost "a lot" of money, but where is your data that proves coding for the Kinect costs the company a tremendous amount more past the INITIAL coding cost?

I see you also do not know the difference between 'imply' and 'in my opinion'. Let me show you a real implication:
Fun Fact: 1 out of 5000 inventions have successful product launches. Black Enterprise, June 1, 1999.
This implies your little invention will fail.

And I really didn't even want to dignify your second paragraph with a response, but here it goes: we've already had facial recognition software. If had it back into the early 2000s. This is fact. And yeah, I can gimmicks gimmicks. How many hard core games are on the Wii? Other than exclusives, not many. How long did it take the first Modern Warfare to hit the Wii? They re-encoded the whole game to Wii motion controls. The games that came out on PS3 have Move 'support.' The ones that were entirely move based did not do well over all. And while Kinect sold well last Christmas, there is a sharp decline in units sold this year. That's a gimmick. A controller you twist to pause to free up buttons on it for maximization? Much less of a gimmick.

Yes we had facial recognition software back then. The first tablet PC was created by Microsoft in 2002 and wasn't really accpect until Steve Jobs brainwashed everyone into thinking he did in 2010. Im sorry, when someone states the obvious but not actually relevant I feel I have too as well.

Sold well last Christmas is an understatement. It sold 8 million units in the first 60 days on the market and shipped 10 million units by March 9, 2011. It won the Guiness World Record for "fastest selling consumer electronics device". [link]http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Kinect-Confirmed-As-Fastest-Selling-Consumer-Electronics-Device/blog/3376939/7691.html[/link]
This implies most people already have one and have not needed to buy a second. As for the gimmick statement, Kinect won T3's "Gadget of the Year" and "Gaming Gadget of the Year", additionally Popular Mechanics ranked it #2 in "The 10 Most Innovative Tech Products of 2011". So forgive me if I'm having a hard time drooling over something that spins to bring up menus...

And you want to talk about hardcore gamers? They hate motion controls. At least, the majority does. Ask an actual hardcore gamer how he feels about the Wii. If he has one, its for the exclusives or entertaining party games. You think they'd be bothered by having more buttons for combos, or more buttons to shoot people with, or buttons to perform actions with? You must think they're fine with standing up and and making movements to get their gun. A lot of us DON'T want that. Ergo, a gimmick. Gamers are always looking for ways to squeeze more from an experience. not all of them want a new one. So I suggest a twist-able controller-- and suddenly I'm wet over it by calling your precious Kinect a gimmick. Even my friends that love the Kinect say its a gimmick.

I know you "hardcore" gamer types. You're right, you dont like anything actually innovative or new. Probably because your intellect cannot handle the pressure of acceptance. Let me take this time to address your comment on CoD MW and Wii. I used to love the CoD series, but its gone downhill. It's become the Madden of FPS. Every single year a new one comes that looks exactly the same as the previous...and every year people act like a miracle happened. Im tired of cookie cutter games and it sickens me they do so well. Why did Nintendo take so long to accept CoD? Because they like to push the limits of their devices. Instead of making extra buttons to bring up menus, they developed 3D technology in a handheld device that doesn't even require glasses. Nintendo doesn't bother as much with fads because they're busy with actually making something new.

I try to use words like cute to be coy, yes. You try to use words like "noob" and "getting wet" like somehow they validate your argument. I'm far from being a hardcore gamer. I have too many games, mostly old and a few new, to be a dedicated hardcore gamer. And when did this go from an idea to an invention? in fact, when did I say I was making jack? Its a gimmick, just like the Kinect is still a gimmick. It will always be a gimmick. It was created and tagged on to the new 360 unit, and shut out owners of the original 360 from access. That's a gimmick. Is it a fancy gimmick? Yes. Hell, the 3DS is based on a Gimmick, and I love that thing to death. Maybe one day it won't be a gimmick. Maybe one day, instead of being an attachment you can buy and then use only once in a while it will be the core of the system. Maybe it'll be a full body setup. Maybe it will evolve well beyond what it is. But its a gimmick now. However, I will agree with you on Call of Duty as a franchise. It has gone to shit. They copy past it and have made the engine to such specifications that they can produce them annually and maximize profits by on slightly upgrading the graphics. The multiplayer also never changes. According to the reports of someone who worked on the third game, the engine is so well polished by now that he referred to it as a 'Porsche,' and not a single line of code obstructed another. Because of its ordered nature they're easier to make. After all, the base engine has been in use since CoD2. I was legitmately let down when MW3 sold well. I thought I heard the industry shoot itself in the foot.

 

[Kyle Meadows]

So, I was playing Skyrim on my PS3. As many of you who own it know, the circle button opens the menu. Well, perhaps it is only because my controller is damaged beyond repair, but I noticed that if I twist it the right way on the right side the menu opens. So then, I had a thought: What if this could be incorporated into a next gen controller? Think guys: to open the menu no longer takes a button. Merely twist either side of the controller. That means every button can be used for an action, thus optimizing the players experience. What do you think? And do you guys have any other ideas?

This already exists my friend, it's called the Razer Hydra. I use this for Skyrim right now and the it's nice for navigating menus because you can just hold the left bumper then tilt your hand to go to whichever menu you need (Tilt up for level up, right for inventory, left for magic and down for map) and there are several other gestures for various actions such as jumping, crouching and sheathing your weapons. It's still early in development and most games you have to use the beta control schemes that sixense releases themselves but when they finally update it so you can update control schemes on the fly it's going to be the best controller for most games out there. It's hard to believe a motion controller can rival a mouse in precision but the hydra honest;y does.

I love you right now. So very much. Is there a link? Can i see it sir? No, don't bother: I SHALL GOOGLE IT AT ONCE.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I like controllers the way they are or rather, the way they were. It looks like motion controls are in and, taking place of traditional game pads. Granted, I like how the Wii-U put the triggers, control cross and, buttons on their tablet. Otherwise, I hope the next PS controller is more like the PS2 controller. As for the next Xbox, I don't worry too much about them. If Kinect becomes then new standard then I'm done with that company. I don't see that as being the case though so hopefully they'll stick to the Xbox Controller-S or, standard 360 control pad.

I miss the Gamecube controller. It made Brawl and, Mario Kart Wii playable for me.

 

[Kyle Meadows]

So, I was playing Skyrim on my PS3. As many of you who own it know, the circle button opens the menu. Well, perhaps it is only because my controller is damaged beyond repair, but I noticed that if I twist it the right way on the right side the menu opens. So then, I had a thought: What if this could be incorporated into a next gen controller? Think guys: to open the menu no longer takes a button. Merely twist either side of the controller. That means every button can be used for an action, thus optimizing the players experience. What do you think? And do you guys have any other ideas?

This already exists my friend, it's called the Razer Hydra. I use this for Skyrim right now and the it's nice for navigating menus because you can just hold the left bumper then tilt your hand to go to whichever menu you need (Tilt up for level up, right for inventory, left for magic and down for map) and there are several other gestures for various actions such as jumping, crouching and sheathing your weapons. It's still early in development and most games you have to use the beta control schemes that sixense releases themselves but when they finally update it so you can update control schemes on the fly it's going to be the best controller for most games out there. It's hard to believe a motion controller can rival a mouse in precision but the hydra honest;y does.

I love you right now. So very much. Is there a link? Can i see it sir? No, don't bother: I SHALL GOOGLE IT AT ONCE.

Now it merely needs to work on the PS3. Can it? Please say it can.

 

[])rStrangelove]

Would love to have a controller jacket with 30+ sensors in it. Every move you do can be recorded and stored as a trigger-shortcut.

So you can decide what move you're doing activates which movement/action in any game you play.

You wanna do a parry in AC with just pointing you right hand upwards? Sure.
You wanna do the exact movement as you see Ezio is doing it in AC? Sure, and good luck with your muscels going numb after an hour.


Thing is: i want freedom to do what i want with a controller. Opensource software all the way.

 

[Solo-Wing]

So, I was playing Skyrim on my PS3. As many of you who own it know, the circle button opens the menu. Well, perhaps it is only because my controller is damaged beyond repair, but I noticed that if I twist it the right way on the right side the menu opens. So then, I had a thought: What if this could be incorporated into a next gen controller? Think guys: to open the menu no longer takes a button. Merely twist either side of the controller. That means every button can be used for an action, thus optimizing the players experience. What do you think? And do you guys have any other ideas?

Do you mean twisting the Controllers handles? I mean it sounds good but I am sure it would be annoying to everybody cause I know for a fact people will always be twisting by accident. Plus that sounds like something that would break really easily.

 

[Mafoobula]

Ooooookay, I'm getting the feeling that people are getting way too damned worked up over what started as a fun little "would this be interesting?" scenario.

OP, I think your idea has some merit. Adding functionality to a controller without adding another couple buttons isn't easy, and I think you've hit on an ideal solution: Don't add buttons, change the buttons that are already on there to do more than be simple buttons.

Now, consider: Is the d-pad all that necessary anymore? I, for one, rather liked the analog nub/pad of the PSP, and I think with the octagonal mold taken from the Gamecube's analog sticks, it would make a fine enough replacement for the d-pad. I know, it's heresy to say such a thing, getting rid of a control mechanism that's been omnipresent since the NES, I just think in this era, we can at the very least improve on the old tried and true design.