I’ve been giving a lot of thought to some of the new gaming consoles recently, specifically the PSP and the Xbox 360. And I already have some design ideas on how to improve them. Provided free of charge, below, are my design ideas.

PSP
The PSP is one damn cool handheld gaming wonder. Who would have thought something so small could pack such a punch. It plays games that look as good as it’s cousin, the PS2. It plays movies in widescreen, near-HD quality. Its memory card expansion makes it a versatile media player. I’ve already talked about the good and bad of the PSP and where it could be improved, from a software and infrastructure standpoint, but let me get to the one fatal flaw of the PSP.

It’s sucks to play games on it.

The PSP is a complete violation of “form meets function”. Whoever came up with the control layout must have had no bones in their hands and could stretch their fingers like Mr. Fantastic, because a normal human would have a bitch of a time playing games for any extended amount of time. I think this is why Lumines is so popular, because the limited button scheme allows people to do the one thing it was meant for them to do with it, that is actually play it. The D-Pad is at just the right height for comfortable control.

Now take a game like WipEout Pure. This game is awesome, but is suffers from poor placement of the buttons. The analog nub has its own problems. For instance, since the nub “floats” on the actual case of the PSP, heated gaming sessions cause resistance and make it feel “sticky”. In WipEout Pure, you have to push your thumb down to the analog nub while extending your index finger to the shoulder button. That’s just the left hand. The right hand sits up a little higher for the standard four-button layout. So in order to get some comfort, you have to tilt the PSP away from you, reducing visibility on the screen. And by doing this, you don’t have a great grip on the PSP itself, so you jeopardize losing your $250 investment because this thing wasn’t designed for humans. I use my white strap as insurance, but even then I have to pull it aside and tuck it in my right palm so it doesn’t get in the way of my grip. Ridge Racer controls much better, because you don’t have to constantly press both shoulder buttons. But try a platformer like Ape Escape, and the flaws become even more evident. Move the character with the analog nub on the left hand, action buttons with the right hand, and camera controls with the D-Pad and shoulder buttons. It’s an impossible task to maintain a manageable camera angle, and it’s enough to drive a circus performer mad.

So how can this be fixed? Nothing short of a complete redesign. First, the analog nub needs to be moved up, no question. And it can’t be a nub anymore; it has to be a stick. Not anything that would stick up much from the front of the console, but something that would provide lean and clear direction, while eliminating the friction with the surface. I’m thinking of something like a mini version of what was on the very first design of the PSOne dual analog controller. That stick had a concaved surface, but no texture so it was a little slick. Add the texture and some mild resistance so it doesn’t feel so floaty.

When I say it needs to be moved up, I say open up the four buttons on the D-Pad and place the analog stick right in the middle. It would be impossible for a game to use both the analog and D-Pad buttons for main control functions, but for ancillary functions, such as inventory or specialized access, they are only a thumb-slide away. Then the entire button/stick layout could be centered onto the widest point of the console and would fit comfortably in one’s hand.

Now for the right side where the action buttons (triangle, square, circle, cross) are, there absolutely positively needs to be another analog stick. This would be used to control the camera in third-person titles or the “look” function in first-person shooters, and judging from the first wave of software, it’s almost a necessity. Maybe the left and right button layouts should be slightly off-center from one-another, the way dual analog sticks for the Gamecube or Xbox are for more logical controls.

The shoulder buttons aren’t safe from redesign, either. My idea is to move them from the top to the back of the console, on either side of the UMD slot, where the index fingers are likely to rest. Consideration for keeping the console thin must be made, so maybe the buttons extend just slightly from the back. They aren’t pressure-sensitive, so one click is all it takes.

And for the love of God, make an expansion port for TV-out or the ability to plug in an external gamepad. My last request would be a foldout stand from the back so it could rest by itself, for watching movies or listening to MP3s.

And that’s it – with these changes the PSP would become the ultimate gaming machine. No royalties necessary, I’ll be happy as long as it’s done. Oh one more thing – make a trade-in program so people stuck with the inferior first-generation release can upgrade at minimal cost.

Xbox 360
What, you say? The 360 isn’t even out yet and it already needs a design change? Not necessarily a design change, but an idea nonetheless. There’s been a lot of talk about the 360 not having an HD-DVD drive. Rumblings from development camps say they are unhappy because the minimum 720p requirements span games across multiple DVDs. Now, the 360 could integrate an HD-DVD drive, which would end up being proprietary since it’s going to get trounced by Sony’s Blu Ray technology. Or Microsoft could give Sony pennies on every dollar toward the cost of manufacturing a 360 by going with a Blu Ray drive, which isn’t going to happen.

So instead of going with a drive at all, why not implement a PC approach – sell a larger capacity hard drive. Right now the drive is 20GB. I say make it 100GB. Hard drive space is cheap nowadays anyway. Then, since Microsoft is ultimately in the software business, create a high-compression algorithm to compress and decompress video from a conventional DVD. What would happen is the game would “install” necessary high-definition videos to the hard drive, and then play them off the hard drive during the game. This would also free up the DVD drive during video playback for other things, like spooling textures and loading levels, or even integrating graphics right into the video. And since it’s not necessary game data, it can be removed and reinstalled at any time. Perhaps the games themselves would “clean up” the hard drive when they are done with a video, to allow other titles to use the hard drive in the same capacity. Plus I would imagine it would be faster to read from the hard drive than to stream from disc.

Two hours of high-definition video is about 25GB on a Blu Ray disc, and realistically only a fraction of this space would be needed at any given time. I might not be a software engineer or game designer but it seems like in theory it could work. Microsoft could even sell the hard drive in several capacities, depending on the gamer’s needs.

Of course, as consoles approach near-rendered graphics, the need for high definition video might be a moot point. The only reason Sony is big on the idea is to push the format in the way the PS2 did for DVD. In that case, just create real-time cutscenes rendered in 720p. All that’s needed is texture space that’s probably being used in the game anyway, so it’s not redundant data. If you want to watch a movie, do it on your stand-alone DVD player.

So no royalties are necessary. I offer them up free for the love of gaming and the benefit of gamers everywhere. Just send me a thank you note, and maybe an all-expense paid trip to TGS next year…