Basic controller setup & alternatives

Most all platform game controllers have the same button/stick layout. Usually there are 4 directional control buttons on the left side of the controller. On the right half one most often find 4 action buttons. In the center there are 2 buttons of more general nature usually used for in-game menu access and starting/pausing the game. Furthermore 2-4 shoulder-mounted buttons are common. In addition some controllers have small, analog joysticks. The described setup is common for most game console controllers available.


I was therefore rather surprised to see the relatively new learning game console for children called V.Smile. The first thing I noticed about it was that the controller seemed to be inverted. In most of the image material I found the directional controls were on the right and the action buttons on the left. This is an invesion of the common setup described above. I was rather puzzled by the reasoning behind this inversion. Why would one want to teach kids to control games using an inverted version of the common setup? Was it because most kids are right-handed that the directional controls were placed on the right?


On closer inspection however it turned out that the controller is actually constructed so that the directional and action controls can be changed or flipped physically in order to support both left- and right-handed children. To me this immediately sounds like an exellent idea. In most console games it is possible to reconfigure the controller buttons and thereby invert the controller through the software. Nevertheless I consider a physical inversion to be slightly more intuitive and user-friendly. However in order for it to work most console game controllers would have to undergo serious design changes.