I suddenly missed this.

As I was browsing the internets, I came across something that lit some past memories in me. Oooh the nostalgia. Ano tong sinasabi ko? Well I saw this...

That's a Playstation 1 Controller kung wala kang idea.

and suddenly I remembered the good old Playstation days. How did I get here? Well the designer of that controller was interviewed recently and he explained the meaning of those icons.

Well Teiyu Goto was interviewed about the controller's design and how it came to be. Seeing as the Playstation Controller in a way, set the standards as to how current generations of controllers were designed, it is surely interesting to learn that those little shapes on the right part have meanings and were not picked randomly. Ever wondered why there wasn't like a star there? Or a hexagon? Or a penis-shaped icon? Well here's what Goto said:

"Other game companies at the time assigned alphabet letters or colors to the buttons. We wanted something simple to remember, which is why we went with icons or symbols, and I came up with the triangle-circle-X-square combination immediately afterward. I gave each symbol a meaning and a color. The triangle refers to viewpoint; I had it represent one's head or direction and made it green. Square refers to a piece of paper; I had it represent menus or documents and made it pink. The circle and X represent 'yes' or 'no' decision-making and I made them red and blue respectively. People thought those colors were mixed up, and I had to reinforce to management that that's what I wanted."

So that cleared things up. You now know why Japanese games back then use the Circle button for accept or for 'okay'-ing a command and the X for 'no' and so on. Dati nalilito pa ko kasi iba ang use of buttons when it comes to games made from other countries. He also stated that the icons route for controller design is much simpler, but then again, there are too many of them to be able to remember classic lines such as:

up up down down left right left right a b a b select start

That's the line every gamer in the world (or in the Philippines at least) knows. And I think I got something wrong there (was it 'select' lang?).

But anyway, the point is that the Playstation controller was one major benchmark in console controller design. It was one of the more comfortable controllers to use back then. Do you still remember the controllers back then?

Dreamcast

The Dreamcast controller was way too clunky and chubby. And the placement of the wire was off in my opinion.

Nintendo 64 

While the Nintendo 64 controller required at least 2 more hands to freaking operate. Just look at that thing. There are buttons all over the place. And guess what? Behind that, I mean below.. or underneath(?), whatever, are at least 2 more buttons.  Man was this controller fugly or what.

Which brings us back to the Playstation controller again. This is my favorite controller by far. And I'm gonna go and search for it now because I suddenly missed my consoles. I know that you're missing gaming as well. Admit it. :)

Teiyu Goto interview from 1up.


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I sure hope this starts the game related articles here. I've been constantly looking for the right news to introduce that idea.