A good controller design can make or break a console. It's probably not what sunk the likes of the Sega Saturn and the Dreamcast, but those missteps with regards to peripherals probably didn't help matters. Take a look at the Playstation controller, whose design hasn't changed a whole lot since it was introduced: it's the perfect combination of joysticks and buttons, ergonomic design and comfort, all of which allow you to play games without feeling like you're playing a game. The gamer-controller-console interface gets reduced to the gamer-console interface. A good controller is notable in its absence. A bad controller is noticeable even when you're not playing a game. There are a seemingly endless stream of useless peripherals which are destined to be bought on a whim/drunken Amazon Cyber Monday trip and then be discarded, plonked in the corner or behind your TV and never used besides the first time, out of morbid curiosity rather than anything else. Those perfect controllers are apparently not enough for some people, who sink literally hundreds of pounds into gimmicky controllers that purport to bring you further into the game when they in fact do the opposite. This week saw the (failed) Kickstarter of a particularly painful spin on the Xbox controller which made you truly feel the pain of a COD loss, to go along with headbands that supposedly translated your thoughts into directions or powerful gloves...all of that and more in the ten craziest video game peripherals.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
