Video games sure have come a long way since the first modern games were released back in 1971 (Compter Space) and 1972 (Pong). But it's not just the graphics, movement, and gameplay that have evolved over the decades. Even the controls used to interact with our favorite games have gone through the ringer of gaming infancy, awkward adolescence, to what they look like now - and who's to say they won't keep on changing as new games and new technologies emerge?

GadgetLove, a website known for their gadget reviews and stunning, high-quality GIFs, has put together interactive slide shows (and animated GIF's) that show how video game controllers have changed over the years. Some, like Nintendo, are unrecognizable from its earliest form, while others like Sony and X-box, while they have definitely undergone design changes, are still basically the same in form as they have been from the start.

Sony's Playstation controller is the most unchanged from the bunch. The most major addition to the overall controller were the two joysticks that were added for the thumbs. But otherwise, the morphing slideshow does not show much revisions to the design that has clearly worked.

Microsoft's X-box definitely went through an awkward phase like most teenagers. For a time, it got rounder, and even sported a ridiculously useless, and in-your-face green X button that they have, thankfully thought the better off, and shrunk and made less garish in the most recent incarnation of the controller. Like the Playstation controller, it's most basic functional form was kept intact for the most part.

Then there's the grand daddy of video game consoles, the Nintendo. The controller for Nintendo has undergone the most drastic of revisions over the decades and is the platform that most clearly reflects the changes and breakthroughs in technology, and how the company thought players would best want to interact with new gaming technology, with every version of its controller.

As GadgetLove themselves put it, "Each new version [of Nintendo] isn't simply an evolution of form factor, but a reimagining of how next generation games will be played in the future."

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