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The story
On 5ch’s hardware/industry (Geha) board, a thread questioned whether Nintendo and Xbox simply copied PlayStation’s analog stick-click feature. That premise was quickly undercut by a reply pointing out that the patent in question was filed back in 1974, has long since expired, and wasn’t even filed by Sony. From there the thread spiraled into debates over the origins of L/R buttons, rumble, and the PS-style boomerang-shaped controller, with posters split over which manufacturer actually thought of what first.
What people said
Though I guess that's how things evolve — copying and getting copied in turn.
Yep, and that settles it.
What's the patent number, exactly?
But seriously, stop mapping it to stuff like picking up items or melee attacks.
What game even does that?
Even Sega didn't go that far.
It doesn't even have L2/R2 or grips though.
Then this post doesn't mean anything either.
25: Anonymous-san Who's Desperate (a stock joke username on this board): 2026/10/01 (Thu) 14:02:43.94 ID:jwtvfNwC0[1/7]
Re: #23
It doesn't even have L2/R2 or grips though.
Before that, L/R buttons were the rip-off.
There's no patent on gameplay design though?
And that's checkmate.
And someone who keeps cycling through IDs (i.e., suspected of sockpuppeting) has no standing to talk either.
I hate stick-click.
Like calling your horse by double-clicking the left stick…
It wasn't even Sony's idea — they just bought an existing part and slapped it on.
Isn't that true for Nintendo too?
You end up unsure — wait, did I just click it or not?
And in a frantic battle you press it by accident without noticing.
Honestly, I don't think we even need it.
>you press it by accident during a frantic battle
I don't get that one.
Rumble
Stick-click
Mushy triggers
The "chocolate bar" D-pad (slang for the old segmented cross-pad)
Mushy triggers are giving me GameCube vibes.
And the "chocolate bar" D-pad — that's the Famicom controller, right?
Yeah, the GC controller's triggers really are garbage.
Even the stick itself is mushy garbage.
When you push it all the way in it gives a satisfying click,
and the dish shape fits your finger nicely.
It's a nice contrast to the clicky feel of the Z button.
Plus/Minus is weird too, honestly — they're never actually used to increase or decrease anything.
Still better than Xbox's View and Menu buttons though; I can never tell which is which.
Game Freak really is the garbage-of-garbage company when it comes to button layouts and UI.
They've got the money, so just hire someone competent for UI and controls already.
I think Pokémon's real problem is the controls shifting slightly with every entry.
I went back to Legends: Arceus recently after a while and fumbled the buttons — ended up doing a forward roll right in front of a shiny Alpha Pokémon and panicked hard.
I think mapping it to some relatively unimportant function is the right call, though.
Best case would be not assigning it to anything at all.
the controls change every single installment.
That too, but what really bugs me is the item box and forging menu controls changing every game.
Play the last three installments back to back and it's total chaos.
LOL so L/R, rumble, and analog sticks are all Nintendo rip-offs too then.
The worst kind of con artist is the one who dodges blame by accusing the person they scammed of being the con artist.
The Wii U: "Wow, Switch, I didn't think you'd stoop this low."
that was also invented by Sony for PlayStation.
Makes you wonder if they just never patented it.
At first I thought the design looked weird and kind of uncool,
but I was surprised how much more comfortable to hold it was compared to older controllers.
That's probably exactly why it caught on and became today's standard shape.
If all you mean is a boomerang shape with grips extending downward, there was already something called the BPS-MAX back in the Famicom era…
Practically nobody knows about it, but even though it was flat-ish, it curved gently and was fairly comfortable to hold.
Its D-pad was sort of a proto slide-pad too, which you could call ahead of its time, though it felt pretty quirky on the Famicom.
so whoever invented stick-click needs to learn their lesson the hard way.
Are you really pressing that hard that you keep triggering it by accident?
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Controller “designs” are protected for a limited time under patents or utility models, but that protection typically expires ten-to-twenty-odd years after filing, after which the design becomes free for anyone to use. The “1974 patent” cited in the thread is a textbook example of this — the spec itself is old, and crucially it didn’t originate with Sony, which is a fair point. Where the thread split was over where to draw the line on “copying”: there are competing claims about which company first implemented individual features like L/R buttons, rumble, or clickable sticks, and in practice it’s closer to the truth that multiple manufacturers converged on similar ideas by borrowing from each other. Replies tend to frame this as a tug-of-war over whether Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony is the “true originator,” but it’s worth remembering that game controller shapes and input schemes are the product of industry-wide trial and error — not something that reduces neatly to a binary of “rip-off” versus “original.”
※This article is compiled and summarized from a 5ch (Hardware/Industry [Geha]) thread titled “Sony came up with the analog stick click and MS/Nintendo are ripping it off — is that really okay???“
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