We take the standard controller for granted these days. Only when something like DualSense literally jolts attention to our hands do we briefly appreciate these integral devices. Even then, it’s the novelty of feeling the game that we think about rather than the decades of refinement and innovation that went into crafting the modern control pad. Decades of growth from the DualShock and Dual Analog controllers that serve as the base from which controllers today developed.
Like all tech of its type, Sony borrowed a few innovations on their journey to market and DualShock certainly built on the tried ‘n’ tested but these two pads’ impact on gaming is undeniable.
Apex Digital Pad
You can argue in the comments about how Sony ripped off the SNES controller. About how it’s only iterative and doesn’t deserve its esteem. Or how Sega Saturn was better for fighting games with its six face action buttons. All valid points but many still believe that the PlayStation‘s original pack-in pad remains the height of digital control.
Extended grips took the SNES controllers attempts at contouring to a user’s hands and actually made it work. A second tier of shoulder buttons added more control options to available digits instead of overloading a user’s thumb. The broken D-pad’s inner recess created a space around which a user could pivot their thumb.
With Sony wanting to avoid the letters or numbers that everyone else was using, they decided on a set of symbols that everyone knows the story of by now, even if everyone still isn’t on the same page when naming the ‘X’ button.
Sony had been thinking in 3D as the pad’s design progressed. Those extra shoulder buttons meant strafing was a one-button affair that didn’t eat two buttons too many. That Triangle button represented a viewpoint; represention a camera button to look around a 3D space.
Awkward Transition
In the early 90s, 3D gaming was still in its infancy. Graphics were rudimentary. Frame-rates were choppy. Controls were digital, lacking the precision necessary to effectively navigate a 3D space. With the release of 32/64-bit consoles in the middle of that decade, graphics and frame-rates improved. Control in a new dimension was still a sticking point.
Sony PlayStation and, to a lesser extent, Sega Saturn heralded the age of relatively high-quality 3D gaming on home console. Both launched with digital pads and early titles wrestled with problems controlling the player character and the camera.
Issues with the on/off nature of digital control led to jerky motion and imprecise turning. Camera controls added to woes in first-person shooters and third-person adventures alike. Having to stop, press a ‘look’ button, to get a sense of where you really were or where you needed to go interrupted play in an unnatural fashion. While the Triangle button was a nice try, the reality of 3D gameplay needed a more fluid solution.
The First 3D Controller
Coming almost two years after PlayStation, Nintendo64’s trident controller had the precise control necessary to move effectively in a 3D space. The pad’s C-buttons were distinct from the other face buttons and featured a raised bump around which to circle one’s thumb when using solely for camera control.
Tomb Raider, Jumping Flash and Wipeout 2097 blew our minds in the pre-analogue control 3D era but comparing them now to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time , Super Mario 64 and F-Zero LXIV, they feel awkward, stilted and imprecise. Smooth turns, small movements and moving a cursor with some level of finesse; the very basics that players need to navigate a 3D space have been central to gaming for over 20 years and it’s hard to go back.
Camera control in first-person, where a player desires equal accuracy in both axes, was still lacking on N64, though. Auto-aim worked wonders at keeping the pace up in FPS titles but it took control away from the player. Control of viewpoint with those digital C-buttons was rudimentary at best. The most common layout involved awkward tapping to maintain fine tracking of what a player wanted to see or aim at.
This was a particular challenge to some players. The asymmetry of the control scheme – one-handed smoothly moving its object of control around while the other jumped around according to the on/off keying of digital movement – felt particularly unnatural.
But a better way was already in the pipeline.
Nintendo Suggests, Sony Perfects
Before the Western release of Sony’s own Dual Analog pad, Nintendo 64 would quietly suggest the dual-analogue future of console FPS controls.
GoldenEye 007 is rightly hailed as a game-changer for console FPS. It let players loose with non-linearity, had location specific damage for enemies and brought a generation of teenagers together in couch FPS multiplayer bliss. Tucked away in a menu is dual-analogue control – using two controllers in a symmetrical fashion like we all do nowadays.
Of course, Sony’s dual-analogue plans were well underway by the time GoldenEye 007 hit shelves. The analogue stick and and separate camera control of N64 would undoubtedly be an inspiration for Dual Analogue and DualShock.
The issues faced by N64 to varying degrees across its 3D games, FPS in particular, would undoubtedly breed innovation to tackle them.
First Attempt
Sony’s first attempt at a dual-analogue controller hit Japanese shelves in March 1997 and followed worldwide in September. Dual Analog lacked vibration in the West and it’s time was short. Their second-attempt, the DualShock, released just a few months later, would become a favourite of gamers and erase most people’s memory of Dual Analog.
That first go was a little wider than the famed DualShock. It had concave thumb-pads of hard plastic instead of the rubberised convex we came to love. Dual Analog’s palm grips were longer than those of the digital pad and DualShock. An obscure Dual Analog feature that DualShock lacks is the ability to emulate the PlayStation Analog Joystick.
Sony had done a lot more right than wrong with Dual Analog.
A Touch of the Future
DualShock would build on Dual Analog. Confident that they had nailed it with their second attempt, Sony would make it the pack-in controller. At first, it gained momentum as more and more gamers got used to the new control paradigm playing games that had optional analogue controls.
But many early games did little to fully exploit the dual-analogue setup. For well over a year after the release of the Dual Analog/DualShock controller, games still laboured with 2D-style controls even though 3D environments and play-styles had been maturing quickly.
At first, analogue use for enhanced 3D control was gentle. Instead of turning like a tank in Resident Evil‘s DualShock version, you could turn like a lighter, more nimble tank. Players could turn their character or vehicle a little or lot and all degrees in between.
Uses of both sticks was limited on PS1. Racing games like F1 ’97 and Gran Turismo allowed players to use the right stick for analogue acceleration and breaking. It took until 1999 for PlayStation to get its one dual-analogue-only game – Ape Escape. In the same year, the first of a handful of first-person shooters developed what we now know as the default console FPS control scheme. Quake II and Aliens: Resurrection may be pioneers but they met with pushback.
The limited use, slow rollout of games that used even one analogue stick and reaction to a new dual-analogue paradigm all add to our belated understanding how ahead of its time DualShock was. For two years, the hundreds of studios that made PlayStation the runaway success it became could not expand their control schemes to meet the capabilities of Dual Analog or DualShock.
A Standard that Continues
PlayStation 1’s library is 99.9% games built with the digital controller’s camera weaknesses in mind. Though we saw flashes of Dual Shock’s brilliance in many games, the impact wouldn’t be truly felt until PlayStation 2. While we’d seen some amazing uses of the pad’s feature set – Metal Gear Solid’s walking controller, the aforementioned racing and shooter controls – games built for dual-analogue weren’t standard until the sixth generation.
After the potential shown by DualShock’s PS1 best, three of four consoles of the sixth generation featured dual-analogue controls. It’s probably no coincidence that Dreamcast launched before Quake II and Aliens: Resurrection with just one analogue stick. With each passing generation, DualShock’s layout became more and more entrenched in gamers’ muscle memory.
The only question nowadays is whether the thumbsticks will be symmetric like PlayStation’s signature style or asymmetric like that of Xbox. The rest will reliably take the form of something released in 1997. Two thumbsticks, each with a clickable button underneath, four face buttons and plenty to press up top.
Thanks for reading the fourth article in our on-going ‘Enduring Legacy series’, where we discuss impact of consoles, peripherals and games throughout the storied history of video games
