Q's Blog entry #2 - 2 or 4 ports?

***quzar*** · March 22nd, 2009, 07:32

A non-gamer friend of mine asked me what the title of this meant (which I had written in a list of possible blawg entires). After explaining, he told me that he had never realized the importance of it, so I thought I'd make this my first real blog entry.

Should a console have 2 or 4 controller ports?

Historically: Pre-Crash

Until the release of the Nintendo 64, most video game systems had 2 ports. In the pre-crash/pre-NES era, the reasons were mostly technical. Although it was possible to have 4 simultaneous players, it was difficult enough to program 2 player games, and when no other alternative existed head-to-head competition or single player fun was more than enough. Home video games were still predominantly arcade translations, and if you wanted to play a game like asteroids with 4 players, you could simply play until you lose and compare high scores (...or maybe that was just me and my tiny friends =P).

The Atari VCS let you play with 4 players if you used two sets of 'paddle' controllers. This worked because a pair of paddle controllers would share a single controller port. I've never read anything citing this as influencing the design of the paddle controllers, which it may not have considering that the few 4 player games (most notable of which was Warlord) came out relatively late in the VCS' life. It's also of note that the Bally Astrocade, a contemporary of the VCS, had 4 ports built-in. Again though, few games supported the feature (but it didn't require special controllers).

Historically: Post-Crash

The standard set by their predecessors continued through for the following generations of consoles. The NES, SMS, Genesis, SNES, Saturn, and Playstation (as well as many ... less popular alternatives) all had 2 ports. This sort of design allowed for plenty of game designs while not really stunting the production of others (especially since the notion of more than 2 player games was for the most part non-existent). The PC-Engine/TurboGrafx16 was the first system to have a 'multitap' released for it.

You may have noticed that system was absent from my listing of the two-port systems of the time, not because I consider it less popular but because it only had one controller port on it. It was because of this that the multitap was created for it. Oddly enough this first multitap split the one port into 5 (instead of the later standard of 4). This sort of device became a standard practice though, with similar devices coming out for basically every system with only 2 built-in ports. For about 10 years, if you wanted to play a 4 player video game at home, you were using a multi-tap (or playing a Codemasters game released in J-Cart [Joypad-Cart] style, which was a cartridge type for the Sega Genesis which had 2 controller ports on the cartridge itself, allowing for 4 player games).

Arcade Refuge

The Simpsons: The Arcade Game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men. When I think of 90's arcades, these 4+ player beat 'em ups seem to be defining of the experience. Why? Because it's the biggest thing that made playing an arcade machine unique. Going to the skating rink or pizza place with a bunch of friends and playing these (by then quite outdated) arcade machines with a full stock of players was quite the experience.

The N64 and beyond

In 1996, Nintendo broke the mold (in more ways than one) with the Nintendo 64. With 4 controller ports built into the machine, a new sort of video game (vastly reminiscent of those massive 4+ player arcade behemoths) appeared: the 'party' game. Mario Party, Super Smash Bros., Mario Kart 64, GoldenEye. These games were in large part (or entirely) defined by their 4 player modes, and are linchpins of the N64's library. On the Sega Dreamcast, the next console to be released after the N64, 4 controller ports allowed for games like PowerStone, Chu Chu Rocket!, allowed for the same: four player action. The Dreamcast changed the landscape though with the inclusion of a built-in modem, by making the number of controller ports built into the machine meaningless. Now, even if you were alone, if you had a phone line and a Dreamcast, you could play Bomberman Online or Alien Front with remote users. More on that later though.

The PS2

The two systems released prior to the PlayStation 2, and all systems released after it have had the built-in ability to use (at least) 4 controllers. The PS2 however, only had 2 ports for controllers, and despite its ability to have up to 8 players by using two multitap devices, relatively few games supported more than 2 players.

So here's the best example of what my point is: how did the PS2 only having 2 controller ports influence the games on it (given the environment it exists in, with all other contemporary consoles having 4 or more)? Throughout its generations, the PS2 has been the system to own for RPGs (single player 'jRPGs'), Platformers (and their modern descendants, the 3D world-explorer ala GTA3), and one-on-one fighting games; all 1-2 player games.

While remote multi-player through the Internet has diminished the importance of physical controllers attached to individual consoles, what sort of impact would it have for a new console to be released with 'only' 2 controller ports? What sort of impact does that have on the other systems available at the time? Did the PS2 having only 2 player capability cause it to draw 1-2 player games from other systems?

I think so. What about you? How much of an influence do you think the number of controllers you can hook up to a system (out of the box) have on its future?

(tangential things in comments)

***quzar*** · March 22nd, 2009, 07:45

Hope you enjoyed that, and I'd love to hear other thoughts on the subject. For a bit more, click the spoiler for an odd tangential.

Spoiler!

**Eviltaco64** · March 23rd, 2009, 03:24

I agree with that.

If you just look at software sales alone, you can clearly see that multiplayer games like Super Smash Bros. and Halo were most definitely what made their respective consoles what they are now (with Gamecube being a popular console at parties with the several multiplayer games it offers and Xbox being the most popular 6th gen console for FPS games).

Playstation 2 really got it's first impressive lineup of games during the 2001 Christmas season, which definitely boosted sales. What were those games? 1 player games like Devil May Cry and ICO. I'm sure developers around them saw the success of these 1P games and wanted in on it.

Dreamcast was unique. It's great RPGs, competitive fighters, 2D shooters, platformers, multiplayer games, and Sega-style games still make it a worthwhile console. It's like having everything on one console.

***Darksaviour69*** · March 24th, 2009, 17:30

Originally Posted by quzar

(or playing a Codemasters game released in J-Cart [Joypad-Cart] style, which was a cartridge type for the Sega Genesis which had 2 controller ports on the cartridge itself, allowing for 4 player games).

actually it allowed 8 player games, 2 on each joypad. (A = left, B =forward, C = right)

***quzar*** · March 24th, 2009, 19:18

Originally Posted by Darksaviour69

actually it allowed 8 player games, 2 on each joypad. (A = left, B =forward, C = right)

That was *only* on one of the micro machines games (Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament). There were ... 4 other J-Cart games. But yes, that worked pretty much the same as atari's paddle controllers. It allowed two on a single port. On the paddles it was because one paddle was 'left-right' and the other was 'up-down' and they were interpreted as such.

I pondered writing a bit about early PC multiplayer options that were unrelated to console ones, such as sharing a keyboard (simultaneously), keyboard vs joystick, and hotseat gaming.