Are game controllers too complicated?

[Rogerioandrade]

Lenny93 said:

Rogerioandrade said:

Yes, they are. For most people.

I´ve met many people that are interested in console gaming, but don´t play due to the controllers. They are not patient enough to learn to use 06+ different buttons for any given game. 

Of course, for long-time gamers like us, that doesn´t seem an issue because we are already used to modern controllers. But many people still struggle with them and I have the feeling that  this is something that seems to prevent console gaming to be bigger.

If the home console market stops growing, graphics can't keep improving due to the cost restraints, it's not a sustainable business. We've already had a 1/3 decrease of triple A games compared to last generation, it could be worse when 10TFlops becomes the new baseline next generation. Gamers are going to have to deal with more contrived DLC or pay more for their games. 

You may be right. Last generation was very casual-friendly with the likes of the Wii, DS, Kinect and lots of rhythm/music games. We´ve seen console overall sales decreasing every year since 2009, with the absence of casual players . Thankfully, it seems that the decrease has ceased so the business may continue for  a while... but I don´t see console gaming surpassing mobile and PC gaming revenues soon.

As for the controllers, I take that from my personal experience over all those years. It has always been hard to get new people into gaming when using traditional consoles/controllers. But when I show them a new tablet ou mobile game, or any casual PC game that only uses the mouse and one or two keys, they tend to get more interested and more engaged into games. A friend from the gym has even told me that he only plays Wii  and tablet games, because he doesn´t like to deal with all those buttons on a traditional controller.