| dunno001 said:
I never said that you said Sony invented them. Rather, I left my entire quote tree in to show that I was referencing back to the issue arisen to Sony's copying of Nintendo's ideas. But I'll go ahead and break this down again, then: Control stick: I did reference systems going back to the 70s using these, the 1982 instance you cite is the first case of thumb ones. But it doesn't change the point that by 1986, joysticks were being relegated to accessories, rather than the controller a system came with. Skip forward 10 more years. Yes, Sony released a flight stick the month the N64 came out. (Let's ignore all the other joystick devices that had come out as accessories for those 10 years I skipped.) This is the first time in 10 years that it could be assumed that everyone had one of these joystick-esque devices again. And this served one purpose initially: to show how much easier one would make movement in a 3D field. N64 launched with Mario 64, a game which many people feel got 3D right. And it was this stick that made it work so fluidly, even if it was digital. People saw this, and took notice. It showed Sony the value of these sticks, enough to the point where they added 2 of them. I do think, had Nintendo not revived this as a standard controller part, the Dual Analog (or Dual Shock) would not have come to be. Remember, too, that Sony's working agreement with Nintendo on the SNES CD let them see some internal things at Nintendo, including the desire to have said joystick device. Rumble pack: *shrugs* Okay, fine, it had a 2-day release lead in Japan. Why is it, then, that the rumble feature was not ported outside of Japan until the later Dual Shock? The easy answer: Nintendo's announcement of the rumble came first. Sony has shown in recent history that when they hear something they like, they're not afraid to try to copy it. (See: Sixaxis.) As per Wikipedia, the single motor in the DA is said to be faulty, and rumored to even be able to damage the Playstation system, though admittingly, I don't see how that (the damage) could happen. Coupling this with a lack of supported games outside of Japan led to the scrapping of the feature upon moving the controller out of Japan. I fail to believe that if Sony were truely working on this independantly, they would allow such a faulty product out. That is, unless they were trying to beat Nintendo to the punch, with their rumble campaign. (I still even have the old SF64 promo video around somewhere...) Motion: I will concede the 2600 controller; I was not aware of its existance. Having no games that support it makes it one of the biggest failures I've ever seen, but that doesn't mean it didn't exist. As for the DDR note, yes, the concept is still pushing button sensors. But if you think you're going to do that with only the movement of a standard controller on a traditional DDR pad, you're crazy. What it really was, was indirect motion controlling. It wasn't tracking your movement as you did it, rather, that you moved to hit the sensor at the right point. Sure, the home version can be played with a controller, but it sucks. With Move in development with the Eye, well... all we have is speculation on that, so I can't say either way which entered development first. All we know for certain is which was announced and released first. Finally, you mention about emulating a controller. The winning system of a generation is always emulated, sometimes with modifications. The NES entered a market with no prior winner (crash of 83), so they needed something completely different. SNES, Genesis, and TG-16 used the NES base, and some added a few more buttons. Next gen, the original Saturn and PS1 controllers (both saw later revisions) modeled the SNES controller. (I've no idea what caused Nintendo's mutated N64 controller though.) The later modified PS1 controller was copied by the XBox, PS2, and to a lesser extent, Gamecube (via the C-stick) and Dreamcast. PS2 was copied by PS3 and 360, with Wii mixing things up. And already, before the generation ends, we see the Wii controller being emulated. I've already covered the modifications to the PS1 controller from the N64 components, so I won't repeat that. And the disk format, well... Nintendo was stubborn, and I could see why back at the N64 launch. CDs are slow and more prone to break or be unusuable with rough people. But cartridges had a different problem: cost and ease of replication. This prohibitively high cost is what cost Nintendo most of their 3rd party support in that era- games that didn't sell to the ordered printrun cost several dollars per unsold copy, and running an extra 5-10K copies of a cart wasn't feasable, further limiting profitability. I think that even Nintendo felt a sting on a few games late in the 64's life, and joined in on the cheap disks, though with their own caveat. But it was too late to mend some broken bridges, and this leads us to some of where we are today. |
We can't really say what Sony would or would not have done if Nintendo didn't come out with their N64 stick. It's obvious they were interested in analog technology, so I would imagine that an analog stick would have been a natural evolution to that. And it was a genius move to add the second stick (as well as ergonomic handles), something other's have "copied", as well. And do you have proof that Sony was allowed to see the N64 controller before 1991, when Nintendo announced they would work with Philips, instead? This was 4 years before the public got to see it.
I'm sure Sony didn't release the Dual Analog in America with rumble because of a design that turned out to be faulty and lack of support in for rumble titles in America. Of course, Sony had many of the design issues sorted out shortly after, as they had the Dual Shock ready for release in Japan just 7 months later.
I don't see the point of saying that DDR couldn't be done with a normal controller, and then saying that on the home consoles it can be played on a normal controller. It kinda contradicts itself. True, it's not the same experience, but it still follows the same principle of hitting buttons at the right time. So, it still isn't motion control. I gave you PPP, though. 
The speculation point is very important. Because we truly have no idea what is going on at these gaming giants offices and research centers. The sad thing is that speculation leads to these "wars". Sony guys will speculate (and sometimes can prove) that Sony already had these things on the back burner, but hadn't released them, yet. While Nintendo guys will speculate that Sony copies Nintendo, whether its true or not. Whether the time of release is within a few months of each other or if Sony is able to get it out early, but just doesn't have the same kind of support for it, yet.
I really don't mind a controller being emulated at all. My only problem is when people accuse one company of copying, and yet, ignore when there fave company does the same thing. Also, you could say that Nintendo drew some inspiration from the Vectrex controller for the original NES controller. Sans that analog stick, of course.
Really, though, my main point is that even if someone wishes to think that Sony only copies, it still can't be denied that it was Sony who pushed gaming to this new extreme. And it was them who made analog sticks and rumble a standard, not Nintendo. Having the first console to push past 100 mil will usually do that to you. 62 mil (NES) was the highest before that. That gen, of course, brought the D-pad and Start & Select into becoming a standard.
