One of dem ol' bricks...
When I said aesthetic and ergonomic design were never considered back in the day it was more like they haven't even bothered. Of course the technology back then made it difficult to manufacture to the standards of products that we have today, but sometimes I feel that at least some effort could have been made. My main gripe: the controllers. Hoo boy, some controllers back then were absolutely mind-boggling, just looking at them makes me wonder how people managed to play their games without breaking their hands. The controller I personally despised the most was the one for the Atari Jaguar. Not only was it stupidly big, the button layout was completely wrong and uncomfortable and it had a 12 button numberpad which was used for... *deep breathe* .. overlays.
Nowadays my mind can rest easy knowing that the technology we have can allow manufacturers to focus making controllers hand-friendly.
Moving onto the consoles. Its funny how the older game consoles just did the job and the more recent consoles are jam-packed with extra features which could make any circus clown feel ashamed of the total number of tricks they can do. Some features like wireless internet connection, CD and DVD playability and internal HD are made to feel like a necessity in a game console. Certainly such features can enhance the use of the game console but do we seriously need consoles to become 'jacks of all trades'? Personally I'm not too bothered if consoles end up being electronic swiss army knives, just as long as they don't forget what their main purpose is.
It only does everything...
Another recent issue that we face today with game consoles is multiple SKUs. I'm not sure what to think of this or to be more precise whether I think this practice is right or not. On the one hand by developing another SKU for a console which removes faults and improves on the previous one, a good example is the Nintendo DS which made several major improvements during the original to the DS lite shift. On the other hand having so many SKUs with vary features can end up seperating and alienating consumers.
Lite and Phat
The last thing I want to discuss in this post are the peripherals which can be used on consoles. There have been a good number of peripherals in the past. Few of them were good, the majority were absolutely horrendous. I thought gaming history has taught that very few peripherals were commercially successful and even if they were the majority of consumers still prefer standard controls. But even to this day game companies keep producing producing these add-ons, often making them a requirement in order to play some games (namely Activision). The latest addition to the peripheral collection is the skateboard controller which is used to play Tony Hawk: Ride. Not only does it fail to work but in order to make it a commercially viable product it is being sold along with the game for £100.
Oh dear... this is just another Powerglove. Speaking of which...
"The Powerglove. It's so bad..."
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