serious question

[Felice]

Why is the joystick always on the left in arcade-units, in stead of on the right? Because most people are right-handed it isn't most handly, especially in sport games.

[RayB]

I was thinking about that the other day...

I think it has to do with the fact that's it more important to have fast reflexes with "actions" (jump, attack, etc) than it is with direction (the joystick).

Other than that, I have no clue. It must have been researched and determined long ago by the pros. It WOULD be interesting to know why this ended up being the best configuration.

[Thenasty]

I think it only became the best because WE got use to it being like that. I have my second player joytcik on the right and in the beginning it was awkward playing MK but now, I got use to it and no diff at all once you got the hang of it.

[Fat_Trucker]

Probably something to do with which lobes in the brain deal with spatial awareness and reaction.....probably.

[ErikRuud]

There are older threads on this board that discuss this.

My sticks are on the right, because in the old days of Atari and Oddysey² the hand controllers were built that way.

A lot of the old arcade games were setup to ambiextrous, with the stick in the middle and duplicate buttons on either side.

I think it was in the days of the original Nintendo Entertainment system and the head to head fighter that the stick on the left became common.

[FractalWalk]

I

[OSCAR]

Some early games had the joystick in the middle, with action buttons on either side (Berzerk, Scramble, etc).  Also many, if not all, joystick-only games had it in the middle (ala Pac).

But it seems that the "primary" controls tended to be on the right for cp's with multiple controls; joysticks w/ buttons, joysticks w/ spinners, spinners w/ buttons, and so on.  For example, on Tempest, the "primary" control is arguably the spinner, which is on the right and the zap buttons on the left.  On Tron, the joystick would be the primary control and it is on the right with the spinner on the left.  So the trend would seem to be that the control that needed quicker action or response tends to be on the right, where it would be easier for "righties" to respond to the game.

But, who really knows?? 

[Trimoor]

Why?...



(note: change extention to mp3.)

[Quarters]

I think it feels more natural to have fire buttons in the direction your character is traveling (on the right). This was probably decided by the direction that we read. Anyone ever seen a scrolling game where you start on the right and work your way  left? That would be weird!

On a related note. I recall being frustrated by playing games configured:

joystick-----jump--fire

then plugging a quarter into one:

joystick-----fire--jump

always made for a quick game.

[scooter]

Anyone ever seen a scrolling game where you start on the right and work your way  left? That would be weird!

Jungle King!!!

[Quarters]

Jungle King!!!

I can't believe I forgot that one   Interestingly JK, JH and PP had universal left/right CPs. I wonder how many people used the left button because of the direction of travel.

[Trimoor]

Anyone ever seen a scrolling game where you start on the right and work your way left? That would be weird!

Commander Keen 4