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It’s one of the oldest arguments in gaming: should you invert up/down controls, or leave them be? Most gamers have a firm opinion on the matter, but Shigeru Miyamoto believes it’s time to settle the matter, once and for all.
“I’ve always felt that if the industry could just settle on one standard it would be a lot easier for us as developers,” he told an audience at a Nintendo roundtable in Los Angeles. “I’ve always felt that at some point we need to find a point where we can unify these two groups.”
The veteran designer raised the issue while discussing Star Fox 64 3D, which was shown off at Nintendo’s E3 press conference this morning.
“The big challenge I’ve always had with games like this in the past is that when you’re playing the game, the audience divides into two groups,” he explained. “One is the people who tilt the control stick up, and they expect the ship to fly up. But then there’s another group who, when they tilt the stick up, expect the ship to fly down, as if they were controlling the nose of an aeroplane.”
Miyamoto asked the assembled crowd to raise their hand if they believed the ship should fly upwards when the stick is moved up. He then joked that these people had been brought up on SEGA games.
For Star Fox 64 3D, Miyamoto believes the best setup is to use the Circle Pad to steer the ship left and right, while using the 3DS gyro controls to move up or down.
