HCI consoles

HCI For Games

Human Computer Interaction (HCI), is the term used to show how a person can interact with a computer or electronic device, developers and designers of hardware and electronic systems must study and plan, how a person (users) is going to use the device.

In games design HCI is what peripherals the player uses to play the game, there are multiple well known and well used peripherals to play the game. Most common is the analogue controller, Xbox and PlayStation both adopted this design in their consoles, PlayStation in 1997 changed their controller to include joysticks instead of the original gamepad, Xbox later used this design in the release of their first Xbox in 2001.

The design was dominant among the gaming market for years along with keyboard and mouse,  until mobile gaming blew up in 2008-2009 since the end of the 20^th century mobile gaming was capable, its popularity starting on small ‘candy bar’ phones with games such as Tetris, Space Invaders or Nokia’s Snake game which were usually displayed in black and white, with low resolutions and relatively minimalistic game play, the games were controlled with the 9 membrane keys which were suitable for the games being played, this was another reason why mobile gaming was limited back then. For years this kept console and PC gaming on top, with mobile gaming being something that you would do whilst waiting for a bus and wouldn't go out of your way to play. However with the increase in smartphone hardware, Software and screen resolution as well as the introduction of online electronic stores such as Androids ‘Google Play’ and Apples ‘App store’, mobile gaming was set to blow up in popularity now games developers could create games which where more than just moving a character left and right, and this happened in 2009 with the release of the smart phone game Angry Birds, launched and available on iOS until its release on android in 2010 and later on windows OS in 2011. The game was hugely different from previous mobile games in the way the player interact with the game angry birds and some other games around that time started using touch screen capabilities in the game with was vastly superior in some game than the previous touch pad. However touch screen gaming can in some new games such as shooters or game requiring to kill something be difficult as the users fingers or hand can block the view and can make gaming frustrating and tiresome.  Angry Birds was a huge success and paved the way for future mobile gaming. Mobile game has become a whole new platform for developers and companies, they can now consider porting their game to the mobile market however this does have risks involved for the company, it would cost them more money as they would have to change most things about the game such as controls, graphics, map sizes. After all this if the game does not sell enough the company has lost out, this is one reason why huge gaming companies don’t really port their games or make separate games for mobile.

 

Console Controllers

PlayStation and Xbox are two of the leading companies for games consoles, there are many differences between them, however one thing that has always been similar is the controller, both companies adopted and kept with a joystick controller design.

Xbox

The Xbox controller has been around since 2001, however it has not changed as much as people may think the layout and shape of the all the Xbox controllers are pretty much the same, the original Xbox controller was changed when the Xbox 360 came out the controller was slimmed down and was less bulky however is was still more firm and bulky than its competitor PlayStation controller. With the release of the Xbox one the controller didn't change to much visually as the only changes where to give the controller a matte finish and cleaner look, the controller for the first time featured a factory standard wireless connector for the controller, getting rid of the old fashioned wires and catching up to PlayStation wireless level. The Xbox controller differs from PlayStation as its joystick are located diagonally to each other as opposed to PlayStation lateral layout. However the rest of the button are located similarly.

 

PlayStation

PlayStation was one of the first companies to adopt the controller design we know today, originally the controller for the PS1 did not have joysticks, and however in 1997 these were added. In 2008 the controller was changed with the PS3 with the new dual shock 3 controller now being wireless this made the controller easier to use and store.

PC

PC gaming has been around since the start of console gaming, however since the start PC peripherals have stayed mostly the same, a mouse and a keyboard. Many people argue that PC mouse and keyboards are more accurate than consoles restricted slow joysticks and its true to some extent, A mouse is vastly superior to a joystick in certain games, for instance in fast action fps game a mouse is better as the user can accelerate the mouse movement gradually or can quickly move the mouse to turn around. With a controller the joystick can only go so far, now console players will argue “ players can turn up their sensitivity to achieve mouse acceleration” however this isn’t the same, firstly in some situations like looking down a scope high sensitivity will make the gun hard to control and the player will not be used to the sensitivity. However with a mouse the sensitivity was always the same, the user was just moving the mouse quicker because there is no limitation to how far you can move the mouse. Also a mouse could be considered superior as the user has a better grip, their entire hand is clutched to the mouse however with a controller a player might easily slip his thumb from the small joysticks and does not have as good grip. The keyboard is neither better nor worse than a controller there are two simple reasons as to why that statement is true. Firstly a keyboard has more keys, games such as Arma or any PC games in general as well as some console games will be easier to play as there are more keys the player can press by having their hand on a keyboard than if they hand their hand on a controller, for example if you grip a controller with one hand such as a PlayStation 4 controller how many buttons can be pressed? 6-7 at most for an average user, however with a keyboard if you have your fingers on WASD with your middle finger on W there are twice as many keys which can be pressed with one hand. Console controllers can compete with twice amount of keys with the fact that console controllers are easier to use, they are simple so that the average user can pick up a controller.

A Game which would be vastly superior on PC peripherals is Dayz or Arma 3 both of these games have many controls more than there are buttons on a controller, there is speculation that the Dayz standalone game will eventually be ported to console however console players would miss out in actions and controls due to not having enough keys.