Sony's Dualshock design: should it change or not?

Posted by LucasReis on August 2, 2012 10:47 am 129

Hi guys. This is my first post on Polygon, and I'm here to talk a little about the Dualshock 3 design.

Yesterday I looked at the Playstation blog and I found out that Sony wants help with the design of their new Dualshock 3 controller. I was really disappointed when I saw that the changes they wanted were purely aesthetic.

I was equally surprised when I saw several posters complaining that it would be a crime to change the design of the controller, which is more or less the same since 1997. OK, cool contest and all, but personally, I think that this controller should have major changes.

Three generations, and the only thing they changed in the last one was the addition of the triggers, which weren't designed to be triggers from day one, and they feel slippy and weird. The point of this post is, as a fan of the Playstation controller, I used to get excited when a new generation of gaming happened, especially to see what kind of controller we would have this time, what kind of innovation would be presented...

And yet, it seems gamers want tradition. I always thought tradition didn't belong in gaming. Gaming is about technology, it's about renewing stuff, and even as a good, safe, ergonomic choice, it would be cool to see Sony rocking something like the Boomerang, or other designs.

I say this as a person who plays all the current consoles and all of the older ones as well. I don't have a favorite brand, I can see strengths and weaknesses in all of them, but I don't think that having an outdated controller is strength. To me, it is a sign of being stale and boring.

What do you guys think?