14 DAY TRIAL // This weekend Hankyu department store in Osaka, Japan, was the host of a robot football match. Don't think that Japanese developers and engineers have finally created the all-functional robot or anything. No. Robots present at the event were the clunky slow ones that everyone knows and, as the picture for which we thank Kotaku shows, they were controlled with customized, third party PlayStation2Dual Shock Analog Controllers.
Japanese peripheral maker Hori is responsible for the white wireless joysticks that were used for kids as well as adults to direct the robots to the ball and the ball to the goal. But why do you think that Hori chose the PS2 controllers over the hundreds out there? Isn't it obvious? They're the best. As much as we like to hate the company making the PlayStation consoles for messing up on so many levels, we have to give them credit for making the perfect controller.
The Dual Shock Analog Controller was first introduced in Japan in 1997, as a controller for the PSone. Along with the PS2's launch, Sony developed the second such controller named (obviously) Dual Shock 2. The latter is probably the best known controller in the world. But what makes it the perfect control unit? Here are some of the PS2 controller's features that allowed Hori to make their choice:
-light-weight (yet the original PSone and PS2 Dual Shock controllers aren't wireless); -huge level of sensitivity for the analog sticks, which also make the L3 and R3 buttons pressure sensitive; -vibration function (although the company was sued over patent rights for this by Immersion Corporation, whom they recently acquired to eliminate the fuss); -perfect shape for playing games comfortably (out of all the controllers out there, the Dual Shock fits best in a player's hand allowing to concentrate exclusively on the game); -perfect symmetrical shape, eliminating another concentration factor for the gamer (contrary to the Xbox 360's controller, which has asymmetrical positioning of the analog sticks);
Surely there are many features that I probably forgot to mention, but the ones above alone prove that the Dual Shock is the perfect controller and not just for playing games on Sony's console, for which it was originally designed, but for any other fun activity requiring remote control.