Why do very few people make right handed joysticks for consoles? For a PC or Mac, you reprogram east as west, west as east, south as north, north as south, and rearrange the buttons. But Consoles are a whole other animal. And I'm not talking just about the modern 5, every console since the NES had a left handed joystick, but in most games, I would prefer a right handed joystick. The last system maker to make a right handed joystick is Sega for the Master System.
How hard is it to make an ambidextrous joystick? Electronically, all you have to do is have a joystick/button remapper plugged in between the joystick and joyport maybe have a display showing what joystick button corresponds to what function, including the way it should be oriented. This also helps where you want to flip the Y axis for flight games, but not the x axis. However ergonomics is lost when creating a joystick design.
A Left handed joystick has buttons that have a southwest to northeast axis layout. Meaning your right hand tilts comfortably when resting on the buttons. Now let's assume my left handed joystick is rotated 180 degrees, and a remapper is plugged in. Almost everyting would work. The problem is your new button hand (left) is on a northwest to southeast axis, while the buttons are on are still on a southwest to northeast axis. If you played like that, you'd have cramped wrists. I always liked flush perpendicular buttons better. A new reason for flush perpendicular buttons is that it will be equally comfortable right handed as well as left. If you really want the angle, the button tray could be placed on a sliding pivot that locks either flush, northwest to southeast, or southwest to northeast.
As to what's better left handed or right handed. Play a fighting game right handed. (note this will only work if you've played games before the NES or have time to learn) I don't know how universal this is, but antecdotally, from the perspective of someone who "crossed wrists" on a game of Donkey Kong when it was in the arcade, Dragon punches seem to get pulled off more often, more consistently, quicker, and/or without giving it away to your opponent, especially if your opponent is human. Probably this will work well for more people than you realize.
90 percent of people are right handed. You use your right hand to things which either require a stronger, faster, or more precise hand. And the left hand is the alternate. A joystick requires more quick and precise handling than a set of buttons. If you agree with both of those statements, then why aren't more people complaining about left handed joysticks.
If you remember most champions crossing your wrists to play Donkey Kong, you know Nintendo started this left handed joystick craze. WHY?! I believe it centers around joypads. 2 thumbs do similar types of work, aka, typing in buttons. (moving a cross is just like typing buttons) Since the action was symmetrical, here seems to be no problems. But when one hand moves a lever, which takes more muscles than a finger pressing a button, especially if you played Pac-Man or any fighting game, it becomes a problem. hey assume people want a left handed joypad because it's consistent with the joypad design. Wrong beagle breath.
But Donkey Kong was made before the NES. I have a couple theories why Nintendo decide to put the joystick in the left hand.
1. Japanese drive on the left side of the road
2. It was a quarter eating gimmick to make a hard game even harder.
3. Most Japanese are left handed
4. An executive of Nintendo of Japan either has a broken right hands/arm or is left handed.
If 1,3,or 4 are true, they never heard of localizing.
So a joystick design I'd like to sell would work for PC, Mac, and for consoles from 2600 to 360, with obscure stops in CD-I, Jaguar, Bally Astrocade, 7800, everywhere, but you'd only buy the adapters for each particular system you own. Two reasons, the first is to make it cheaper per system by not duplicating the joystick, and the second is to put licensing fees for a particular system with a particular system's hookup, not to charge all 3 license fees in the main joystick unless you use all 3 systems.(let's not forget Sega, Atari, Phillips/Magnavox, 3DO, NEC, Coleco, Matell, Bally, Emerson, Fairchild, which makes 13 licenses, though the last ten are probably real cheap)
It would be a modular joystick. You buy one arcade digital 8-way stick, and one layout of 8 buttons. They are separate, but linked together as one controller. This is for 2 reasons, one is to accommodate left and right handed play and tilt either way. The other is to make it expandable. Want to play a maze game? take out the 8-way, put in a 4 way. need to play QBert, rotate the 4-way 45 degrees Mario Brothers? 2 way joystick. Need to play Robotron or Smash TV? 2 8-way joysticks? Centipede, Slither, Crystal Castles, or Marble Madness, replace the stick with a trackball (with 2 modes, one joystick compatible for consoles, the other true trackball for PCs and Mac's.) Pong or Warlords,? Use a paddle. Super Sprint? Use a free rotating wheel. You don't have to by the buttons over. Playing more modern games, replace digital controls with analogue ones. Need a fire button on the joystick? Put it there too.
Hopefully someone can make my dream Joystick system. $200 for 2 PC/Mac 8-way sticks, and 4x2 button layouts, 2 boards which hold the components and make them act as a single control, and has a pivot button for left and right handed play. A joystick/button remapper or 2 controls. and a reasonably priced system adapter for everything from 2600 to 360 sold individually or in packs. Please someone build it. I'm willing to pay.
Home
Help
Search
Login
Register
Send this topic
Print
Topic: When left is right and right is wrong (Read 1714 times)
