Sunday, November 28, 2010

1989 meets 1979 meets 1959

The cover of the May 1989 issue of Video Games & Computer Entertainment magazine asked, IS THE JOYSTICK A THING OF THE PAST?



The question is prompted by Brøderbund's U-Force controller for the 8-bit NES, which was meant to revolutionize the videogame controller with its high-tech cube of infrared motion detection.

It did not, primarily because it didn't actually work very well.

But this VG&CE cover seems behind the times even for its era -- the Atari-style joystick was already becoming a thing of the past, as the greater flexibility afforded by the NES and Sega Master System's D-pad-plus-buttons style began to shift the entire industry's approach to the human-machine interface.  Asking whether the "joystick" is a thing of the past seems seriously out-of-date.

Even more seriously out-of-date: putting a Caucasian dude beating up an African-American dude on the cover of your magazine.

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