Goodbye D-pad

General and high profile video game topics.
ActRaiser1
Posts: 2726
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Goodbye D-pad

Postby ActRaiser1 » July 16th, 2012, 9:56 pm

[QUOTE=N64Dude]Wait until 2005? Then why does the Dreamcast have a cross shaped D-Pad?[/QUOTE]

I found this.

http://nfgworld.com/mb/thread/991-Sega-Dreamcast-D-Pad-How-d-they-do-it

Irenicus1
Posts: 421
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Goodbye D-pad

Postby Irenicus1 » July 16th, 2012, 11:00 pm

For the most part I've transitioned from D-pad to Analog sticks. I still prefer D-pad for Street Fighter II & the SNK Fighters.

The Xbox 360 D-pad is awful. The analog sticks are great. Why couldn't Microsoft get the D-pad right? Just too lazy or what? The NES D-pad is better & the SNES is better still.


Greisha1
Posts: 707
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Goodbye D-pad

Postby Greisha1 » July 17th, 2012, 1:21 pm

Wow. Didn't realize Nintendo patented it ... definitely explains a lot!

(With that said ... don't like the Wii or 360 D-pads. Never played a PS3, but I imagine it's like the PS2 D-pad ... which is OK. I kind of wish the Wii-motes could have been the size of NES controllers with similar D-pads, but this would have been awkward for the "B" trigger and for smaller hands.)

bluemonkey1
Posts: 2444
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Goodbye D-pad

Postby bluemonkey1 » July 29th, 2012, 9:08 am

[QUOTE=Irenicus]
The Xbox 360 D-pad is awful. The analog sticks are great. Why couldn't Microsoft get the D-pad right? Just too lazy or what? The NES D-pad is better & the SNES is better still.

[/QUOTE]
The thing with the 360's d-pad is it's very individualistic depending on that particular controller's manufacture.  There's a lot of them where it catches on the casing, but if you open it up and file it down it works fine.  I believe the new controllers you can switch the d-pad between two positions as well.

Personally I've never been keen on the cross shaped d-pad or the Sony non-joined up d-pad, both make it far too hard for me to hit diagonals.  I think the Mega Drive and Saturn got it spot on though.  Can't say I care much about d-pads on modern consoles though as an arcade stick is always the much better option for fighters and 2D shooters and most platform games these days seem to be designed with analogue sticks in mind.

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VideoGameCritic
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Goodbye D-pad

Postby VideoGameCritic » July 29th, 2012, 5:03 pm

Reports of the D-pad's demise are greatly exaggerated.  In modern games like Batman Arkham Asylum and Call of Duty the D-pad has a critical purpose - cycling through your inventory.

An analog stick is great for movement but clumsy for precision navigation through menus or item lists.  It may have been re-purposed, but I don't see it going away - ever.

scotland171
Posts: 816
Joined: December 31st, 1969, 7:00 pm

Goodbye D-pad

Postby scotland171 » September 5th, 2012, 10:04 pm

The D-Pad may be even older than you think.  The story I read most often credits the Nintendo Game and Watch design, but I think there were antecedents. In the late 1970s, first Mattel and then Coleco made a line of handheld LED (light emitting diode) games. Call them 1st generation portables, if you like - as like the 1st generation home consoles, they only played what they came with.   The two varieties of Mattel football in particular were quite popular in my circle of friends, and each came with what today we would call a D-Pad.   It was on the right side of the game though, not the left, and the 'D-pad' was composed of 4 seperate buttons, laid out in the cardinal points. Diagonals were not important, as most games were on grids. The buttons were extremely durable and responsive, and some of these systems are still around today.  The LEDs were bright enough to see even in moderate light, which is good, since that and an overlay was the extent of the graphics, and those 9 volts did not last all that long.  Sound was a variety of chirps, and gameplay is best summed up as 'you had to be there', but believe me, they were popular enough for Coleco to jump on the ship that Mattel built. I'm sure many a teacher's desk drawers held confiscated LED handhelds in the days of disco. In recent years there have been retro remakes of the Mattel football II and baseball. 

Perhaps a similar case could be made for the analog stick.  While the Atari 5200 gets credit for introducing it (a recent IGN article in particular made this claim), certainly some 1st generation consoles had analog controllers, such as the Unisonic 2600 of 1978.


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