by [name redacted]

Originally published by Next Generation, under a title that I no longer remember.

Generally speaking, the controller sold with a console can be read as a microcosm of the console itself. (You might call it a rule of thumb – though I would not advise this.) That the Odyssey2 came with a right-handed stick and a single button for the left hand tells you that its games are simple, that movement is the central mechanism, and that if there is any secondary function its importance is minimal. That the NES replaces this template with a cross-shaped D-pad for the left thumb and two buttons for the right, labeled from the outside of the controller in the order that your hand meets them, says mountains of Nintendo’s idea of videogames, circa 1985.

The reasoning is clear. A control interface is the point with which you communicate with a videogame; the interface presented to you by any given console therefore tells you both what the system has to say and what kind of response it expects. Or to put it more simply, If videogames are a study of cause and effect, then how a game console allows you to communicate with it is as vital as what it has to say to you.

If you accept this theory, familiar facts start to assemble into menacing shapes. Take the NES pad, for example. It was as much a revolution as Super Mario Bros.; between the two, videogames have never been the same since – except, you know, in the sense that they have always been the same since. Behind all of the distractions – our full-motion video and true 3D and optical storage and mip-mapping and high-definition displays and half-a-dozen new buttons… well, look at Grand Theft Auto III, our shining beacon of progressive design. In principle it’s the same game as 1987’s Legend of Zelda. And what do you know, every standard control device of the last twenty years has been based on the NES – from SNES to PlayStation to the Dual Shock series.

Enter: The Remix Generation

Now we’ve been blessed with three new systems, meant to carry us on to at least 2010: the PlayStation 3, offering more raw muscle than ever before and a controller Sony introduced a decade ago (albeit remolded to resemble a Batarang); the Xbox 360, offering more raw muscle than ever before and a Controller S retooled to even more closely resemble Sony’s controller; and the Revolution, offering a little more power than before and a controller that I shouldn’t have to mention in the context of this article.

The 360 is the first out the door, and surprise of surprises, two-thirds of the games on its launch list are either gussied-up current-generation games like Gun and King Kong (both developed for the lowest common denominator of the PS2) or merely the 2005 entries in long-unchanging series like Madden and Need for Speed. Get rid of a couple of PC ports and all you’re really left with are two Rare games, neither of which has much to say that we didn’t hear a decade ago on the N64 (as pretty as they might be).

As for the controller – if you go by what The Internet has to say, it is perhaps the best ever designed. It has the best buttons, the best analog sticks. It’s so solid-feeling. See how clicky the new shoulder buttons are. And it’s so comfortable to hold!

Indeed, most of those details are correct in and of themselves. Microsoft has done its work; the 360 pad is a shining example of the power of focus testing and user response – as is the Xbox 360 itself. Although people kind of liked the Controller S, they were more used to the Dual Shock – so it has been altered accordingly. People liked the WaveBird, so the 360 controller has been made wireless by default. The controller has been molded to fit an average set of hands, and has been given the most responsive, the most well-tested individual components available. People want a sturdy controller that won’t break like Sony’s, so that’s what they’re getting. It seems every demand has been met.

A Hot Trigger Issue

On the Controller S, the white and black buttons are placed on the lower-right, where they can easily be pressed with the underknuckle of the right thumb; otherwise, they stay far out of the way. Why does the 360 turn them into shoulder buttons? Because the Dual Shock and its sequels have four shoulder buttons. Why do the Dual Shocks have four shoulder buttons? Because the SNES pad only had two shoulder buttons. Why did the SNES pad have shoulder buttons? Ostensibly, to give rotation control in games that contained Mode-7. The idea of using them for state changes (like sneaking or holding your weapon out) came later.

What good are that many shoulder buttons? People have argued that first-person shooters and driving games can’t do without them. And what a loss the world would be without those two genres. For everyone else, all they breed is confusion. Let’s see how familiar this sounds:

“Is it L1 or L2?”
“It’s L1.”
“Whoops, that was L2.”
“No, it was L1.”
“Was it? Oh, I meant L2 then.”

Naming the analog sticks L3 and R3 only compounds the problem. The buttons are out-of-sight, and there’s no real tactile difference between the two on each side. The 360 pad tries to cover its bases by making the shoulder buttons completely different from the analog triggers. It doesn’t really work, though – and why should it? It’s just dodging a deeper issue.

The 360 was designed by market research and by focus testing, meticulously developed according to what people who already played videogames said they wanted and to what people who don’t play videogames said might make them buy the system anyway. The problem here is that, as a whole, people don’t know what they like; people don’t know what they want. They will only (and in a sense can only) ask for what they already know.

If people are presented with a controller that checks all of the obvious boxes, if it doesn’t cause them any problems personally, they will give it a flying pass. If what it’s lacking doesn’t have a name, if it’s intangible, that will go ignored. Likewise (in the case of the Nintendo DS and the Revolution) if what a new control system provides is lacking in a name, if it’s intangible, that will go ignored, leaving people with a pile of disconnected and worrisome details.

A Funhouse Mirror

So there’s one sin, that of unoriginality. It’s a lesser sin, and certainly nothing… original. There’s a related sin in Microsoft’s disturbing lack of vision. Lack of effort. The 360 is essentially designed by petition. The theory is, please everybody, cow to every whim, and you must surely come out on top.

Of course you can never please everybody, especially if you’re going to get all sycophantic about it. All that will get you is a system exquisitely tailored to a bland medium of people who probably don’t need to be catered to at all. In the process, you will marginalize anyone who falls outside that median range, thereby needlessly limit your potential audience in favor of the favor of people who don’t need your favor at all.

The problem, of course, is that in the videogame business the majority is a minority. “Gamers” of the sort the 360 caters to make up a relatively small audience of obsessives, world-wide – and the market’s unlikely to ever grow that much. It’s saturated. Or you could say it’s entrenched. I say inbred, which for my money gets the closest in terms of unpleasantness.

Russel T. Davies has said of his revival of Doctor Who that there’s no point in chasing after fans, as they’ll follow the show anyway. If you happen to piss them off, all that will mean is they’ll only watch an episode eight times instead of eleven. What you want to do is produce something that’s relevant to as many people as possible, on a human level – even if you’re producing something as apparently niche as Doctor Who. And what do you know, the new series has become one of the BBC’s biggest success stories in years.

Videogames as a whole are at a place not unlike Doctor Who in the 1980s: caught up in its own continuity, inaccessible to anyone who hasn’t been following the series for twenty years. And the 360 unwittingly buys into all of this nonsense, not knowing where it comes from or where it’s going. This is the thread of idleness that will, if left unchecked, destroy the industry and the medium – or at least quash development for years to come.

The funny thing is, Microsoft knows this, at least subconsciously – as does Sony, with the PS2 and the PS3 and the PSP. The existing market is growing restless, and it isn’t really growing. Conclusion? Videogames are on their way out. It’s safest to hedge your bets. Build in a DVD player. An mp3 player. A TiVo device. You can see Microsoft grasping at straws with its “High-Def Era” nonsense. They’re worried, and they don’t know why. All they can do is put their tails between their legs and ask you what you want.

Thus, for all its faceplate frenzy, is the unconscious discrimination in the console’s launch lineup. As long as your hands are an average size, the controller will fit you like a glove. As long as all you want is white bread, you could hardly ask for anything more. As Peter Moore said, this is probably the best launch ever. Thus will be the 360: focus-tested, sparkly, and perfect.