![]() This is the controller for the ColecoVision. One of my favorite examples of that had to be this one right here. And judging by the look of most second-gen controllers, it's clear designers had their hands full adjusting to it. Though by today's standards, "Donkey Kong" is far from a complex game, when you compare this to video games of the previous era, it's clear that video game technology made a huge leap. This meant that controllers of this generation had to be designed with more versatility to accommodate for the more complex games. Video games no longer meant just bouncing a blip between rectangles. But most importantly, in this generation, instead of having a variety of games hardwired onto each console, interchangeable ROM cartridges became the norm. Gen two was the era that brought us, of course, handheld video game controllers. Interestingly enough, it was actually the very first console, the Magnavox Odyssey, that first featured controllers that could actually detach from the console itself, something that would become a standard of gaming in generations to come. Gaming used to require human contact and socialization. That's because the controllers were actually on the console themselves. Both the Atari Model C-100, Atari's first console, and the Coleco Telstar, which I'm holding right here, required two people to sit right next to each other in order to play. And typically, that's what you got.īeing that there was no conventional way to design a controller in the 1970s, most of the designs were questionable, to say the least. A simple knob or two were all that was required. ![]() It's essentially "Pong" for lonely people.īecause video games were so basic at this time, video game controllers didn't need to do much. And handball is yet again the same game, only with one paddle bouncing the ball off of a wall. Tennis is essentially what most people today recognize as "Pong." Hockey is the same game but with two or more paddles. The Telstar came with three games- handball, hockey, and tennis. As a result, video games of this generation were basic- I mean, extremely basic. The first generation of video game developers dating back to the 1970s were burdened with the task of creating video games with very little examples to pull from and extremely limited hardware to play them on. They've also changed drastically since, with each generation seemingly inspiring the next in terms of style, comfortability, and practicality. Video game controllers have been around since, well, as long as video games have been around, considering there'd be no way to play without them.Īnd since the inception of video games in the 1970s, video game controllers have come in various shapes and forms. Video TranscriptīRANDON QUINTANA: Video game controllers- the middleman between the player and the fun, the original gaming peripheral. ![]() As a result, the controllers we use to play those games have changed to adapt with that ever-advancing technology. Since the inception of video games in the 1970s, games and video game consoles have evolved with each generation.
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