joystick and gamepads

• A joystick is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. A joystick, also known as the control column, is the principal control device in the cockpit of many civilian and military aircraft
  

• Joysticks are often used to control video games, and usually have one or more push-buttons whose state can also be read by the computer. A popular variation of the joystick used on modern video game consoles is the analog stick. Joysticks are also used for controlling machines such as cranes, trucks, underwater unmanned vehicles, wheelchairs, surveillance cameras, and zero turning radius lawn mowers. The Xbox One controller maintains the overall layout found in the Xbox 360 design. The directional pad has been changed to a four-way design, and the battery compartment is slimmer. Each trigger will also feature independent rumble motors called "Impulse Triggers", which allows developers to program directional vibration. One trigger can be made to vibrate when firing a gun.
  

OLDER GAMEPADS AND JOYSTICKS 

• Near the end of the NES's lifespan, upon the release of the AV Famicom and the NES 2, the design of the game controller was modified slightly, abandoning the "brick" shell in favor of a "dog bone" shape, reminiscent of the controllers of its successor the Super Nintendo Entertainment System/Super Famicom. the second controller lacked Select and Start buttons. In their place was a microphone, although very few games supported it. Initially, Famicom controllers were manufactured with square-shaped A and B buttons, but these were discontinued and recalled in 1984 due to being prone to heavy wear. While many arcade systems had the directional control joystick on the left of the buttons,

• The Master System controller has a similar brick-shaped appearance to the NES controller, but the d-pad (named the "D button") is square-shaped instead of cross-shaped. Master System games were pausable only by accessing a button on the console itself. Some early models of the pad featured a hole in the center of the joypad into which a small attachment could be screwed to make the pad function more like a joystick.
  

sources:wikipedia.com