Things were pretty basic at first, for example the Sega Master System controller, a rectangular piece of plastic with a some directional buttons on the left and a few more buttons on the right. Despite this simple design it has been the basis for most controllers still in use today. The shape began to change when most probably some research in anthropometrics (looking at the shapes, curves etc in the human body) was carried out to make them more comfortable in the hand. Some of the first of these controllers were the Sega Mega Drive controllers. Today we have Sony's Playstation 3 adopting the same old shape that fits nicely in 2 hands, Xbox 360 also using similar controllers (a bit chunkier) and these both have the directional buttons on the left and the others on the right, with the addition of a few more round the back and underneath. It is interesting to note that "start" buttons are also typically on the top middle. Nintendo have gone for something completely different with the Wii console. This controller, much more like TV remote almost seems to have taken a few steps back to make a very "new to gaming" friendly controller. Not only this but the controller is motion sensitive and comes with a numchuck to attach to do even more.
We then have the steering wheels, light guns, chainsaws etc to be used. With many flight sims you can even basically have the cockpit of a plane in your front room (a bit sad really) and similar things are done with driving games. Sony's Eye Toy completely removes the use of a controller and I had even my parents and their friends playing on that (under the influence of alcohol I might add). Guitar Hero is another recent game that uses a simple plastic guitar that looks more like it is a toddlers Fisher Price guitar!
So what comes next??? Is it worth buying all these controllers to pretend to play guitar or chop people up with chainsaws, or are we better off doing it for real (well maybe not the chainsaw part)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_controller
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