Nintendo refined the D-pad so players could use it without looking

 Photo: Orlando105, CC BY-SA 3.0, via [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Game_and_watch_donkey_kong.JPG). The D-pad’s most useful design detail may be the one your thumb can feel but your eyes never need to see. Nintendo’s *Game & Watch: Donkey Kong*, released in June 1982, was the first game to use the company’s +Control Pad—one year before the Famicom/NES launched in Japan. In Nintendo’s *Iwata Asks* interview, the developers recalled building and rejecting prototype after prototype with Gunpei Yokoi. Their goal was specific: players should be able to operate the pad without looking down. One response was a slight depression at its centre, giving the thumb a tactile reference point. That small hollow captures a lasting controller-design principle: when attention belongs on the screen, physical controls can tell your hand where it is. The D-pad wasn’t only a compact way to fit four directions onto a handheld; it was shaped to be navigated by touch. Nintendo developers describe the design process in [*Recreating Ball 30 Years Later*](https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Iwata-Asks/Iwata-Asks-Game-Watch/Iwata-Asks-Game-Watch/5-Recreating-Ball-30-Years-Later/5-Recreating-Ball-30-Years-Later-223202.html). ~gaming ~nintendo