Game controllers have been designed and improved over the years to be as user friendly as possible. Special purpose devices, such as steering wheels for driving games and light guns for shooting games, are also game controllers.Ĭontrollers which are included with the purchase of a home console are considered as standard controllers, while those that are available to purchase from the console manufacturer or third-party offerings are considered peripheral controllers.
Input devices that have been classified as game controllers include keyboards, mouses, gamepads, joysticks, etc. USB game controllers could also be connected to a computer with a USB port. Before the seventh generation of video game consoles, plugging in a controller into one of a console's controller ports were the primary means of using a game controller, although since then they have been replaced by wireless controllers, which do not require controller ports on the console but are battery-powered. A player holding a North American SNES controllerĪ game controller, gaming controller, or simply controller, is an input device used with video games or entertainment systems to provide input to a video game, typically to control an object or character in the game.
