WORLD OF GAMING

The gaming pleasure has never more realized than the invention of the gaming consoles. A likely scene: a player spends hours and hours hooked to a console game, either battling hordes of nasty monsters in a role-playing game or faced with a sudden death move in a one-on-one combat scenario. Over the decades, the prevalence of such audio-visual entertainment has spawned many followers from kids to adults the world over. Year after year, console games are released to attract consumer interests with every bit of ploy and promotion manufacturers can come up with; thus, gaming consoles continually evolve to introduce new technologies even unimaginable when the first generation of consoles was marketed in 1972.

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Now, more than thirty years later, its existence in the global market has accounted for billions of dollars in annual sales (even higher than that of Hollywood's local sales). In fact, seventh generations of gaming consoles can just poise themselves and wait for the video game industry’s growth to ace further. Overall sales upped to about 43% last year with the introduction of Nintendo’s Wii (pronounced like the word we) which helped set the sales at a record $17.9 billion. Wii’s competitors Microsoft Xbox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3 respectively sold 1.3 million and 800,000 units during the holidays. In December alone, console games such as Call of Duty 4 and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock sold more than 2 millions copies each. There is no doubt then that gaming consoles are hot items to possess. However, what makes them so hot? Or does the real question go: Why do people play games?

Human-computer interaction has never been this intense as compared to the situation decades ago. Cutting-edge technology has been implemented to make any game create such a unique experience for the player. This is why competition among manufacturers have gone stiff and the field of computers games has focused on going beyond high scores and graphical realism to make every player experience deeper. A game is basically enhanced to draw emotions to make it rather mentally and emotionally engaging. It is then quite simple to say that by shearing a game off of challenges the entire game play becomes utterly plain and boring.

Hence, recent developments in software and hardware have paved the way for the advancement of game controllers. Other than the fact that a game controller is a technological marvel per se, it increases the level of gaming pleasure as they improve human-computer interaction by making game consoles receptive and usable for the player's needs. Such design methodologies are, so to speak, the answer to real-world problems which have been used as models for every type of game. Game controllers have been designed to suit the movements and actions of the player's character. It is through such form of hardware then that players become one with the characters they have selected.

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Each console game has a specific game controller requirement upon purchase which suggests that a certain type of controller can add more fun and excitement to a game. This includes game pad, trackball, paddle, arcade-style joystick, joystick, steering wheel, throttle quadrant, pedal, yoke, touch screen, light gun, programmable PC controllers, and a set of keyboard, mouse, and mouse pad. Like the steering wheel for a racing game, there are also controllers which specialize in a certain type of game. Such is the case of rhythm games like Pump It Up and Dance Dance Revolution and their use of dance pads. There are also controllers that look like musical instruments such as maracas, drums, and guitars. The Wii Remote (or the Wiimote) designed solely for the Wii system has the capability to sense motion through optical sensor technology. This gives players the chance to interact with the console's user interface and modify items onscreen. Xbox's Steel Batallion, on the other hand, gives players the feel of an actual mecha's cockpit with two joysticks with more than 30 buttons each. The Xbox 360, a follow-up to Xbox, also introduces a state-of-the-art controller through the Wireless Controller. It operates in 2.4GHz and ranges up to 30 feet, has an adjustable vibration feedback, and can be used like the Wii Remote to allow players to access games and other media and to turn on and off the game console. A game controller, to wit, is the key to a fantastic game simulation, that without won't make games in general feel they are worth the time.