3D games wouldn't be the same without it so it's definitely up there. If you want to see how much of a difference it makes, play Mario 64 on DS then play the original, it's nowhere near as precise on DS.

I love the analog stick, but I think that the greatest improvement videogaming ever had was the transition from aracade-only to the small boxes that we have now. You can actually own your own videogames thanks to that!

Pong in the arcades launched the same year as the Magnavox Oddyssey in homes did so there wasn't much of a transition from arcade-only to home consoles.  Though arcades did eventually become far more popular only for home consoles to eventually reverse the situation.

The analog stick certainly rates up there as one of if not the greatest single improvements in gaming.   While going from pixels to polygons can be debated if it were an improvement, it's another that stands tall among all other improvements.

True, but arcade games were introduced in 1966, predating the Magnavox Odyssey by 9 years. The golden age of arcade and the very first introduction of home consoles was hand-in-hand, but the first arcade games predated consoles by almost a decade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_game

You can't remap the dpad to the analogue stick on PS3? You totally can on Vita.

#buyavita

Yes and no, i still play GT with out using them.

Electro-mechanical games aren't video games. But yeah, many of the companies that produced them changed the video game industry because they were experienced with arcades.

The biggest improvements were probably microprocessors (you would only have stuff like PONG without them) and exchangeable cartridges. 

it may sound small, but i like not having a controller cable lol Me and my brothers were TERRIBLE at getting those cords tangled..

no.

...but the second analogue stick is.

Analog's got nothing on rumble.