You've probably had a moment in your life where you finally sit down to play your favorite game, you pick up your controller and press it to connect to your system, just to find out that it won't even blink. Great, it ran out of battery. Now, you either doom scroll while your controller charges for an hour or you panic around your house finding a pair of double As that actually have charge left.
But that then raises the question: which one is the better solution? Unfortunately, the answer isn't that simple.
To understand where the architecture of a modern video game controller comes from, we need to look into the history of them.
It all starts with the Magnavox Odyssey. Released in 1972, it serves as the first commercially sold video game console. It was revolutionary because it was the first system that allowed users to play video games on a television with a wired controller configuration separate from the console itself.
The controller, much like the console itself did not have a microprocessor or CPU but instead used analogue circuitry. Through resistors and potentiometers the controller would function basically akin to what a modern volume knob is. Moving the controller would physically change electrical resistance which would alter the position of the dots on the screen by changing the signal sent to the TV.
Soon, within this revolution interestingly came the birth of arcades and arcade consoles which completely rejected the established concept of a controller by not having any traditional detachable controllers. This was so because the cabinet itself served as the controller, where the input was bolted directly on the machine to be powered directly. It also made repairability easier and modular, and simply having detachable portable controllers was irrelevant to the context of arcades. And it just made sense, too. Cabinets were designed to be flashy with popping art on the side and having a controller embedded would also mean you would be pretty close to the screen, eyes glued to the visuals.
In the home console space while everything continued to remain the same, the Atari 2600 brought a significant change. It introduced a DE-9 connector on its joystick controller, which soon was standardized and widespread across multiple different consoles and controllers, including Commodore 64, Amiga and most famously the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. However, the controllers remained wired and still drew no power on their own.
When Nintendo hit the console space, the brought the influential and recognizable button layout with the NES controller, which is still followed to this day. Further iterated with the SNES, the controller became more ergonomic and introduced shoulder buttons. The genesis followed, with its iteration with the button count and connector, and even the original PS1 non analog controller shared a lot of similarities albeit with better ergonomics with it's iconic two prong grips and unique button icons.
However, the most interesting controller in the late 90s had to be the Nintendo 64 controller. It's often called the "Alien" controller because of its three-prong design, it's certainly... unique from it's competition. It did re-introduce the joystick again as the analogue stick, but like the rest, it's still passive and powered directly through the console itself. However, the most unique development in power capacity comes from the Rumble Pak introduced for the Nintendo 64, which basically provides controller vibration capabilities. Which is significant, because not only was this an accessory for the controller, but it utilized batteries on the accessory itself rather than the controller! Sony followed soon enough introducing the Dual Shock with two analog sticks and rumble capabilities, all integrated within the controller itself, which again drew power from the console itself.
As we move into the 2000s controllers continue to remain primarily passive. Wireless is still a dream, but is slowly becoming a reality.
The Nintendo GameCube introduced the first major first party wireless controller as an alternative a year after the consoles release, calling it the "Wave bird". It used a small wireless receiver connected to the controller port and used double A batteries, however the controller lacked vibration functionality as a trade off to preserve battery life, but this became the first instance of a controller managing it's power independently from its console.
But the Wave bird was still an "accessory". It was expensive, and was merely an alternative to wired controllers rather than having a universal adoption.
That was brought in 2005, with the Xbox 360 controller. Wireless out of the box, it connected using a built in wireless receiver within the console and used two double As while retaining rumble capabilities. It went on to become the standard for controller connectivity for not just the future of Xbox, but controllers as a whole.
And in 2006, with the Nintendo Wii we were introduced to the Wii remotes that connected using Bluetooth and utilized double As, meanwhile the modern dilemma came with the release of the PlayStation 3, which with it's Six Axis controller introduced wireless functionality at the cost of no replaceable battery and relied on being recharged via a mini USB.
So far, every controller complexity brought a new power problem which the following generation solved differently. However, the PS3 and Xbox 360 split solutions into two distinct philosophies that still are being followed today. Sony doubling down on the sealed rechargeable approach with the Dual Shock 4 and mostly recently with the Dual Sense, which features a significantly larger battery to accommodate power hungry features such as the adaptive triggers and haptic system. Microsoft on the other hand continued championing the double A approach through the Xbox One and Series X controllers, though the addition of trigger rumble motors significantly increased power draw, straining the very philosophy they were committed to. Nintendo took their own path with the Switch's Joy-Cons, featuring sealed internal batteries in a modular detachable form factor, becoming another approach that introduced its own compromises.
Of course, both sides have a cost. Sealed batteries degrade over time, losing their original capacity, turning otherwise perfect controllers into junk once the cells cannot hold charge. The double A approach assumes the user has a steady supply and access to quality batteries, an assumption that works in some economies while falls apart everywhere else.
Both of these approaches exist at a level to justify planned obsolescence of your controllers. Both Sony and Microsoft sell replacement controllers. A potential battery degradation is a potential new sale. The Double A approach might seem user friendly at a glance but it traps users into dependency on the consumables market. Especially with Microsoft, they have a co marketing agreement with Duracell where each controller ships with a pair of Duracell batteries which benefits both companies.
I believe perhaps a hybrid approach could be a solution for this problem. If every controller is shipped with a compartment for double As, instead of double As you receive a battery pack. This would give users the freedom to switch to double As temporarily if battery degrades and replace it easily with a new battery pack if they wish so. This is something that's already being partly implemented, with the USB C port on the Series X controller with the battery pack that is sold separately. However, considering the cost of bundling a battery pack is significantly more expensive and is an unlikely outcome. This idea itself stems from my own experience with my Series X controller, where I ran through multiple Toshiba double As every week, until I found a battery pack that effectively saved me. I could have gone for more reliable heavy duty batteries, however even in markets where Duracell and Energizer exist there is a significant price premium, running through them weekly becomes financially unsustainable.
Some companies on the other hand are trying to contest this by making controllers themselves generally more repairable. The new Valve Steam Controller has exceptionally high repairability score, and replacing the lithium ion battery is as simple as removing back plate screws, and pulling out the battery from its compartment similar to a PSP, 3DS or Wii U gamepad from back in the day. Even though the compartment isn't tool free, it's still a step in the right direction for the future of battery powered controllers.
Picking up a dead controller shouldn't have a binary choice between hunting for double As or waiting for it to charge. Even though the idea of a removable battery compartment in a controller shipped with a battery pack is an optimistic future, even following the Valve approach of making rechargeable controllers easier to repair is a sustainable goal that can soon overthrow the looming planned obsolescence that has impacted the video game industry as much as other electronics.
This one's a bit unstructured, but I've really been playing Rockstar's Bully (2006) recently. I picked it up for like 6 bones on Steam and even though it was a pain to setup and make playable on modern hardware, it's fun! It's going to turn 20 years in October this year and honestly it still holds up surprisingly really well. The writing is very sharp, witty and serves as a satirical critique of the schooling system and social and structural hierarchies within. It also had a lot of negative media coverage back during release, where it generated a lot of moral panic for potentially influencing kids for the worse, which I find hilarious because most of the game is based on what kids already do in school anyway.
Anyhow If you haven't played it give it a shot it's pretty cool. Now if you excuse me, I have some bullies to stuff into lockers...XD
Why is it so that walking by Vespucci beach, in Los Santos, the most common NPC character is a white woman? Skinny, petite and wait, all of them are the same? The outfits are different, sure, okay maybe there are some skin variations too but how is it so in such a densely populated city there is a critical lack of body diversity?
Body diversity wasn't really that important in gaming until recent years where movements towards body acceptance and diversity in the real world.
When 3D gaming was primitive it made sense why NPC diversity didn't exist. You practically had polygons, very limited hardware specs, and programmers had to use tricks up their sleeves to use up all the juice of the hardware. It was difficult to even consider focusing on body types alone, and much easier to copy paste different heads on the same body. Games like the original GTA were entirely top down and relied on swapped textures, but GTA III is known for having repetitive pedestrians. The "same hat different pedestrian" problem was just getting normalized.
Animating 3D bodies early on was nightmarish. They would look horrifying if they got too detailed, which is why developers would default to stylized, slim proportions because they were easier to work with without getting them wrong. Less math to calculate and less room for error. Fat, curves and muscles, on the other hand require a lot more calculations for the polygons to not look like melting wax.
But then in the 2000s it gets even more uncomfortable. By this stage games now can do decent 3D character models, but games like dead or alive still choose feature petite, anime style, big breasted women while having the hardware capacity to make and show body diversity and instead represent a very specific ideology about which bodies get detail and which don't.
There's a well documented thing in game development where the default placeholder model used during development is almost always a slim white male, sometimes literally called "the mannequin." That default has a way of persisting into shipped games.
What does it mean now? Well, rest assured gaming has been taking some positive strides.
The most diversity in NPC types I saw was in Cyberpunk 2077, more specifically there is an NPC who you need to have a boxing match with, his wife is also there but interestingly she's pregnant. You can see her body mesh is clearly made for a pregnant woman, and it amazed me, a shook me a little because it probably was the first time I've seen a pregnant woman in a videogame.
On the other hand I know I started this with a complaint about GTA V NPC diversity, but the recent GTA VI trailer showed us a snippet of the beach and we can see multiple different feminine body styles which definitely makes me much more hopeful about the future, as some games have begun to treat NPC and bodies as people, rather than background texture.
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