Controller

This week, a new version of the Xbox 360 controller released with gray buttons, tweaked analog sticks, and a d-pad that transforms between a plus shape and a traditional Xbox platter style. We spoke with senior industrial designer John Ikeda all about these changes; Ikeda has been at Microsoft since 2004 and worked on the design and development of the original Xbox 360 and all of its accessories, the new slim remodel, and Kinect. He was a key team member in this design as well, and says that the 360’s oft-complained-about d-pad was something that his team has been looking at “since day one.”

FIXING THE D-PAD

Ikeda explains that they’ve already addressed the d-pad’s problems “under the hood” starting with the green European 360 controller. That design is now used throughout all new controllers. But something was still off. The “over the hood” d-pad issue (the part players see and touch) needed to be addressed as well.

Microsoft ran extensive user studies on all types of d-pads and eventually decided it came down to the plus versus the platter.

“Those two d-pads, all things under the hood being equal, they’re still not equal because what you’re touching, what you’re holding, what you’re pressing – that’s different,” Ikeda says. “Depending on the content you play, you’re going to want one or the other. There’s no ‘This d-pad is right for all things.’ Depending on how you use the d-pad, there might be a different d-pad for you.”

Ikeda explains that people want a plus pad for precise games like Pac-man and a platter for fighting games like Street Fighter so that they can pull off special moves without getting a nasty thumb blister. Because of this, the designers tried to figure out a way to do both, and after many iterations came upon the “twist to transform” design that made it into the final product.

“We had several other ideas of how we could accomplish this, but we had some pretty tough metrics that we were measuring ourselves against,” Ikeda says. “One, it had to be simple. You can do removable parts and junk like that, but we really wanted this to be something that the user could do really simply that would never ever interfere with gameplay. We also wanted it to be very robust. It had to last a long time.”

THE CHANGE TO GRAY BUTTONS

“We wanted to do something that had universal appeal to core. We took a lot of inspiration from the Special Forces and how those people dress,” Ikeda says. “So one of the things we landed on really quickly is this grayed out muted color scheme. Nothing shines nothing rattles. Kind of like if you were going to go out on covert ops.”

“The attitude we had with this was the ABXY buttons are [labeled] and color-coded. That’s for usability. That’s something that we do on all our products,” he continues. “But this new gamepad isn’t for people learning how to play games. This is for the person who’s already customized their controller. They already know that thing forward and backward, left and right. So we want to keep that looking professional and part of that is taking the colors off of the ABXY buttons. They’re still clearly marked, but if you really need to look down to know which color A is then you’re probably not a core gamer.”

NEW ANALOG STICKS

“We’ve got a lot of mixed receptions on our current thumbstick. Some people really like those little nubs that we have, those little bumps on them. Those aren’t really for direction. Those are really just for grip,” Ikeda says. “For some people those bumps are really annoying…We’ve heard other people say that they cut them off. We’ve found that other people rub them off on purpose. And we have other people say that when you lose them and you don’t have any grip it kind of sucks, too.”

“So what we tried to do with the new thumb stick is give you that little lip, that little edge, and that little concave, so it still sucks your thumb down a little better,” he says. “You get a little more ‘sticktion.’ That’s kind of a word we use for not stickiness, but friction.”

WILL THIS BECOME THE STANDARD CONTROLLER?

“What I’m really interested to see is once this gets out there and a lot of people have them then, yeah, if it’s something that users are really finding helps improve their gamepad experience, yeah, I would hope to see it in other devices,” Ikeda says. “And along the same tracks we’re always looking at stuff on the gamepad. As long as we make games that need gamepads we will always be looking at improving the gamepad. The day the game studios say, ‘Look, we’re not going to make those kinds of games anymore.’ Then okay, that’s the day I’ll stop looking at this.”

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