Game Controller Designs Through the Years

Back in 2023, I looked at some retro joystick designs, focusing mostly on standard Atari designs, but there have been a lot of other different game controller designs over the years. For this look back, I’ll skip over the ubiquitous Atari 2600-style joystick and look at some other types of controllers.

Intellivision Style

The first big competitor to the Atari 2600 was the Mattel Intellivision. That game system warrants its own article, but one of the many interesting things about it was that it had controllers that were part of the system and used a control pad with a number pad.

The number pad was intended to have game-specific functionality highlighted with an overlay that slipped over the numbers. In practice those functions were hard to reach and overlays were a hassle and easily lost.

I’m sure I used an Intellivision back in the 80s, but I don’t really have any specifically recollection of that. It does seem like the controller is rather universally disliked being awkward to hold and the pad not allowing for precise control.

Atari’s follow-up to the 2600 was the ill-fated 5200. Like the Intellivision it also had a controller with a built-in number pad, although the 5200 used an actual joystick instead of a control pad and it was at the top instead of the bottom. Unfortunately, the joystick was analog and did not self-center, making it completely inappropriate for most games of the era. It probably worked OK for something like Centipede or Missile Command (that used a trackball in the arcade), but it was just terrible for something like Pac-Man. It was notoriously unreliable as well. However, it did have a built-in Pause button, which was unique for the time.

In 1983, the ColecoVision was released and this system was a significant jump in quality over both the Intellivsion and Atari consoles. It also used a controller with a joystick and a number pad. The joystick was a small stub and also at the top.

Gamepad Style Controllers

The arrival of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) introduced the gamepad style controller, which would become the dominate controller style going forward.

The NES controller was small, rectangular and easy to hold with a thumb pad on the left and buttons on the right.

One of my many NES controllers

Atari eventually aped this controller design with the European version of the Atari 7800 (and also included with the modern Atari 7800+ system).

The Sega Master System used a similar controller.

The Sega Genesis beefed things up a bit to make the controller easier to hold.

The Super Nintendo controller was essentially a slightly larger and curved NES controller with some extra buttons.

The Atari Jaguar had a comically large controller and they also strangely chose to stick a number pad on it. I found the Jaguar controller to be pretty comfortable, but it was too big for smaller hands. It was perhaps slightly easier to use the number pad with this design, but overlays were still a pain.

Fun fact: the Jaguar controller also worked with the enhanced 1040STE joystick ports, although practically nothing made use of them.

The PlayStation was introduced with a great gamepad that was the perfect size.

This controller was improved a few years later with the “DualShock” controller that added dual analog thumb sticks, to supplement the digital thumb pad, and vibration motors. It might just be the best overall controller design, in my opinion. This controller was so good it was also used with the Playstation 2.

My fun, transparent blue Dual Shock controller.

Analog Style Computer Controllers

Jumping over to computers for a moment, there was a common style of analog joystick that was used by the Apple II and Tandy Color Computer. I don’t believe these controllers were compatible with each other, but they looked similar with a boxy shape, square buttons and a small analog stick in the middle that was usually not self-centering.

Weird Controllers

I have to give Nintendo props for introducing some of the weirdest gamepad variants. The Nintendo 64 controller confused a log of people with its extra center grip that allowed you to hold it differently depending on how the game worked. But it still was essentially a gamepad with an analog stick.

The bizarre N64 controller with the center analog stick.

The Nintendo Wii shrunk the gamepad down to a single stick and made it wireless with a companion (but wired) “wand” controller. These were certainly unique for the time.

And the Wii U added that giant gamepad controller/device that most didn’t seem to like.

Nintendo did seem to learn from all both of those controller designs and with the Switch was able to successfully combine a portable game pad with removable, wireless gamepads.

The Sega Dreamcast controller was a larger gamepad, but it had the ability to pop in a small memory unit with its own LCD that could display info. This VMU (virtual memory unit) even had its own gamepad built-in and could play simple games. Strange.

Sega VMU that plugged into the top of its controller.

Hands Off

What was your favorite gaming console controller? As mentioned above, for me it is definitely the PlayStation DualShock.