An
analog stick, sometimes called a
thumbstick,
control stick, or occasionally a
c-stick is an input device for a controller (often a
game controllerA game controller is an input device used to control a video game. A controller is typically connected to a video game console or a personal computer. A game controller can be a keyboard, mouse, gamepad, joystick, paddle, or any other device designed for gaming that can receive input...
) that is used for two-dimensional input. An analog stick is a popular variation of a
joystickA joystick is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Joysticks are often used to control video games, and usually have one or more push-buttons whose state can also be read by the computer...
. It consists of some sort of protrusion from the controller, and the input is based on the position of this protrusion. While a digital joystick relies on single electrical connections for movement (using internal digital electrical contacts for up, down, left and right), an analog stick uses continuous electrical activity running through
potentiometerA potentiometer is a three-terminal resistor with a sliding contact that forms an adjustable voltage divider. If only two terminals are used , it acts as a variable resistor or rheostat. Potentiometers are commonly used to control electrical devices such as volume controls on audio equipment...
s. The analog stick has greatly overtaken the
D-padA D-pad is a flat, usually thumb-operated directional control found on nearly all modern video game console gamepads, game controllers and on the remote control units of some television and DVD players, smart phones, with one button on each point...
in both prominence and usage in console video games.
Usage in video games
In a video game, an analog stick is often used to move some game object, usually the
protagonistA protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, video game, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to share the most empathy...
. It may also be used to rotate the camera, usually around the protagonist. The analog stick can serve a great variety of other functions, depending on the game. Today many analog sticks can also be pushed like other buttons on a controller.
Its use is prevalent in 3D games, where more than 8 directions are needed (which is all that was offered on the d-pad). Using a
D-padA D-pad is a flat, usually thumb-operated directional control found on nearly all modern video game console gamepads, game controllers and on the remote control units of some television and DVD players, smart phones, with one button on each point...
in a 3D game greatly limits the ability to move. For example, in a 3D platformer like Super Mario 64, using a D-pad would allow Mario to move forward, left, and forward-left, but nothing in between. Some early 3D games like
Resident EvilResident Evil, known in Japan as , is a survival horror video game by Capcom. The inaugural title and first installment in the Resident Evil series, it was originally released in 1996 for the PlayStation and has subsequently been ported to the Sega Saturn and PC.In 2002, a remake of the game was...
overcame this limitation by assigning the Left and Right directions on the D-pad to spin the character instead of making the character move in that direction. However with the prevalence of analog sticks, the aforementioned limitation of the D-pad no longer became an issue.
Dual analog sticks
Two analog sticks offer greater functionality than a single stick. On some modern game controllers, the position of the first stick is where the left thumb usually rests, usually to the upper left of the D-pad. The position of the right stick is usually to the lower left of the face buttons. Although this is a slightly awkward position for the right thumb, it is understandable seeing as the buttons that normally appear on the face on the controller are used more often. Systems with this configuration on first-party controllers include the GameCube,
XboxThe Xbox is a video game console produced by Microsoft. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast, and Nintendo's GameCube...
, and
Xbox 360The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft, and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles....
.
Some controllers instead have the two analog sticks in a symmetrical configuration with a D-pad on the left thumb position and face buttons at the right thumb position, with analog sticks below and closer to the center on both sides. Sony's
PlayStationThe PlayStation is a 32-bit fifth generation video game console released by Sony Computer Entertainment in December ....
-series analog controllers: The
Dual Analog ControllerThe PlayStation Dual Analog Controller is Sony's first attempt at a handheld analog controller for the PlayStation, and the predecessor to the DualShock...
,
DualShockThe DualShock is a line of vibration-feedback gamepads by Sony for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 video game consoles. The DualShock was introduced in Japan in late 1997, and launched in America in May 1998, meeting with critical success...
, DualShock 2, Sixaxis, and DualShock 3 all use this configuration, with the remainder of the controller layout closely resembling the original non-analog PlayStation controller. The Classic Controller for the
Nintendois a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel...
WiiThe is a home video game console released by Nintendo. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of both...
maintains a similar layout.
With genres such as
actionAction game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand-eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games....
,
adventure gameAn adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story that is driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenges such as combat...
,
platformingPlatform game, or platformer, is a video game genre characterized by jumping to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles. It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
, and
shootingShooter games are a subgenre of action game, which often test the player's speed and reaction time. Because shooters make up the majority of action games, it is a fairly wide subgenre. It includes many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing "on the actions of the avatar using some sort of...
, the left stick normally controls the protagonist while the second stick controls the camera. The use of a second analog stick alleviated problems in many earlier platform games, in which the camera was notorious for bad positioning. The right stick not only allows for camera control in third-person platform games, but is almost essential for most modern first-person shooters such as
HaloHalo is a science fiction video game franchise created by Bungie and owned and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The main trilogy of games center on the experiences of the Master Chief, a cybernetically-enhanced human super-soldier, and his artificial intelligence companion, Cortana...
, where it controls where the player looks, as opposed to the left stick, which controls where the player moves. In Katamari Damacy and Beautiful Katamari, both by Namco, both analog sticks are used at once to control the player's character.
The
PSPThe PlayStation Portable is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on May 11, 2004 at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
has been criticized for the lack of a second analog "nub" to accompany the left-hand one.
History
Many, if not most, 1970s video game consoles featured an analog joystick, see under, the VC 4000 (1978) for more info.
In 1982
AtariAtari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Infogrames Entertainment SA ....
released the first controller with a potentiometer-based analog stick for their
Atari 5200The Atari 5200 SuperSystem, or simply the Atari 5200, is a video game console that was introduced in 1982 by Atari Inc. as a replacement for the famous Atari 2600. The 5200 was created to compete with the Intellivision, but wound up more directly competing with the ColecoVision shortly after its...
home console. However, the non-centering joystick design proved to be ungainly and unreliable, alienating many consumers at the time. During that same year, General Consumer Electronics introduced the
VectrexThe Vectrex is an 8-bit video game console that was developed by Western Technologies/Smith Engineering. It was licensed and distributed first by General Consumer Electric , and then by Milton Bradley Company after their purchase of GCE...
, a
vector graphicsVector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based on mathematical equations, to represent images in computer graphics....
based system which used a self-centering analog stick, obviously a precursor to the modern design.
For many years, consoles ignored analog technology, instead using the digital
D-padA D-pad is a flat, usually thumb-operated directional control found on nearly all modern video game console gamepads, game controllers and on the remote control units of some television and DVD players, smart phones, with one button on each point...
. It wasn't until the emergence of 3D gameplay that the analog stick was brought back for widespread use.
In 1995, Sony (realizing that analog technology could be useful) created a potentiometer-based analog joystick for use in Flight-Simulation games. The Sony Dual Analog
FlightStickThe PlayStation Analog Joystick is Sony's first analog controller for the PlayStation, and is the precursor to the PlayStation Dual Analog Controller...
featured twin analog sticks and was used in games such as "Descent" to provide a much greater degree of freedom than the typical digital joysticks of the day.
In 1996
Nintendois a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel...
introduced a thumb-operated
control stick on their
Nintendo 64The , often abbreviated as N64, is Nintendo's third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released on June 23, 1996 in Japan, September 29, 1996 in North America, March 1, 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1, 1997 in France and December 10,...
controllerThe Nintendo 64 controller is the standard game controller included with the Nintendo 64. Released by Nintendo in late 1996 in Japan and North America, and 1997 in Europe, it features ten buttons, one digital control stick and a directional pad, all laid out in a "M" shape.-Design:The controller...
. While it was still a digital stick, not an analog one,
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=3&cId=3143627, (one that operated on the same principles as a mechanical computer mouse), the Nintendo 64's Control stick still allowed for a great deal of varying levels of pressure and near-360-degree control, translating into far more precise movements than was possible with a D-pad. (Incidentally, the later port of Super Mario 64 to the d-pad-only Nintendo DS portable system in
Super Mario 64 DSis an enhanced remake of the 1996 Nintendo 64, platform game Super Mario 64, produced by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld game console. The game was a launch title for the Nintendo DS, released in the United States and Japan in 2004; it was later released in PAL regions in 2005.Nintendo...
was criticized by some for imprecise control due to lack of an analog stick on the
Nintendo DSThe is a dual-screen handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in 2004 in Canada, the United States, and Japan. The console features a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP, with two LCD screens inside—with the bottom one being a touchscreen...
.)
Super Mario 64 was released in
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
on 23 June 1996. On 5 July 1996,
Segais a multinational video game software and hardware development company, and a home computer and console manufacturer headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan...
released
Nights into Dreams...Nights into Dreams... , is a video game released by Sega in 1996 for the Sega Saturn video game system. The game's story follows two children entering a dream world, where they are aided by the main character, Nights...
for their
SaturnThe is a 32-bit video game console that was first released on November 22 1994 in Japan, May 11 1995 in North America, and July 8 1995 in Europe...
console in Japan; bundled with it was the Saturn 3D control pad which featured an analog pad intended to give the player more fluid control over that game's
flightFlight is the process by which an object moves either through the air, or movement beyond earth's atmosphere , by aerodynamically generating lift, propulsive thrust or aerostatically using buoyancy, or by simple ballistic movement.-Buoyant flight:Humans, although not apparently other animals, have...
-based gameplay.
During this same period,
Sonyis a multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, and one of the world's largest media conglomerates with revenue exceeding ¥ 7.730.0 trillion, or $78.88 billion U.S. . Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics, video, communications, video game...
was also creating a similar analog stick, based on the same potentiometer technology that was used in the larger Dual Analog Flightstick. Released in November 1996, the Sony
Dual AnalogThe PlayStation Dual Analog Controller is Sony's first attempt at a handheld analog controller for the PlayStation, and the predecessor to the DualShock...
controller featured three modes of analog (Flightstick, Full Analog and Analog-Off), and dual plastic concave thumbsticks, while Nintendo and Sega's controllers only had a single stick.
In 1997 Sony released their third analog revision to the market- the Sony "Dual Shock". The controller featured similar twin analog sticks to the Dual Analog, although they were convex and rubber tipped. Sony also removed the third analog (flightstick) mode and replaced their own previous rumble feature with Immersion's haptic technology. (Note: In 1999,
Ape Escape
Ape Escape is a platform game for the PlayStation, which launched a series of the same name.Ape Escape was first released in North America on May 31, 1999, and shortly after in Japan under the name , on June 24, 1999. It was released in PlayStation Network Japan on August 30, 2007...
became the first major video game to
require the use of two analog sticks.)
Since then, all major
video game consoleA video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or electronic device that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
controllers have included two analog sticks, with the exception of the
Sega DreamcastThe Dreamcast is the last video game console made by Sega, and is the successor to the Sega Saturn...
and
Nintendois a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel...
's non-classic
WiiThe is a home video game console released by Nintendo. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of both...
controllers. Sony even included one in their
handheld game consoleA handheld game console is a lightweight, portable device with a built-in screen, games controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are run on machines of small size allowing people to carry them and play them at any time or place...
, the
Playstation PortableThe PlayStation Portable is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on May 11, 2004 at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
.
External links
- How Stuff Works articles on: