Once all three next-gen consoles are out, we can look back at this generation as the era of peripherals. So many publishers tied their games to chunky pieces of plastic, and to great success. Of course, all those extras started piling up in houses and emptying wallets, so consumers started backing off. Now we're left with shells of our former self.
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There have always been peripherals. The Atari 2600 had a driving controller that was used for one game -- Indy 500. It also had keypads (different types for different games) as well as the joysticks and paddles that came with the unit.
The NES had ROB and the Zapper from Nintendo. It had third-party stuff ranging from the Power Glove (Regular Show did a great parody of that) to the scope to four-player adapters (which were came from Nintendo)
The Genesis had everything from the Activator suit to the Menacer gun.
The PSX had one-handed controllers and dance pads.
The list is endless and will remain so -- regardless of what 1UP thinks.
Remember, PT Barnum was right: “There's a sucker born every minute.”
Mike from Morgantown
God I hate peripherals...
Yeah, there have always been peripherals, but the big push to the mainstream was what caused it to be overused in the long run, and Guitar Hero and Rockband were some of the biggest pushers of that 'era'. Just like EA Sports and Ubisoftz, any time someone gets into a good thing, they milk it as long as they possibly can, and then they can't understand why sales drop off later when everyone's bored-sick of them all.
mmmmh... no!
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