Growing technological advancements and the increasing demand for digitization paves way for more portable electronic products in the present world. One such category that’s driving the next generation is a video game controller. In 2019, the gaming industry generated $120B revenue and it’s expected to reach $200B in the next two years. The gaming controller is a device used along with entertainment and gaming systems to operate different functions and to control objects in a game. The global gaming console market size is expected to reach 51.15B by 2027 at a CAGR of 5.3% and projected that 2.7B people about a third of the global population will be gamers. [1,2]

Core Components in a Gaming Controller

The right choice of electronics in a controller is very important for creating a gaming controller with accurate controls, faster response, and long battery runtime. Therefore the key components in the design of a video game controller are gamepads or joysticks, a microprocessor for driving the motor, an input user interface, and logic controls & switches. The most important component is the energy storage unit that consists of a battery charger connected with a USB power switch and a non-isolated DC/DC power supply.

Joysticks:

The selection of sensors in a joystick is critical because they decide the gameplay. The common joystick used in video games usually comprises two orthogonal potentiometers for X and Y movement through a mechanism that rotates the shafts. However, these potentiometers lack precise movement and produce noise and wear quickly. Therefore, the magnetic assembly module becomes a good choice as it’s very sensitive and also responds to very small movements. The hall effect sensors capture tiny magnets’ movement from the joystick and then pass the movement to the controller board. The displacement of the joystick is thus detected from the variations in the circuit’s frequency response and control signals are produced accordingly.

Embedded Components:

The core of the controllers are these embedded systems consisting of a user control interface, central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU), RAM, operating system (OS), and video & audio output. The CPU calculates various aspects of the game and controls the game based on user input. The CPU then passes the information to the GPU that’s responsible for translating the instructions taken by the CPU and renders the images on the screen by controlling them in buffer frames.

The GPU functions with the support of a video random access memory (VRAM). The RAM in the system is responsible for the overall interworking of the systems and it stores the game data which the CPU uses for its calculations. The processors need to maintain a clock speed of 3.5GHz to 4.0 GHz for gaming and faster clock speeds can complete the orders quickly from the CPU for making the gaming experience seamless.

5Gs Disruption in Gaming

The future of entertainment is gaming and the future of gaming is community. 5G is poised to change everything in our digital lives, with faster speeds, reduced and greater capacity that could bring shockwaves through virtual reality (VR), cloud gaming, and more multiplayer gaming opportunities. The optimum latency rate required for any real gaming is 20ms. Currently, 4G offers latency between 30ms and 50ms. 5G is about to have a latency as low as 10ms and go up to 1ms in the future and this “zero lag” will unlock more VR and augmented reality (AR) gaming. [3]

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