Skip to main content

While a console’s design might not be the first reason why gamers line up for its release, it still plays an important role in its success. Imagine having a console that was large and difficult to store. Or using a controller that had buttons in inconvenient locations, which made playing your favourite games a frustrating experience.

Designing a console means taking many different aspects into account. Modeling and prototyping designs are therefore essential. Want to learn more about how engineering design skills can be applied more specifically to the world of video game console design? Read on to find out!

Use Your Engineering Design Training to Help Draft Consoles

Apart from power and performance, a console’s look, feel, and ergonomics are equally important considerations. Gamers also prefer consoles today that aren’t too heavy or bulky, and have the ability to fit amazingly well in tight spaces. To this end, many designers admire the console design of the Nintendo Gamecube. A sixth-generation Nintendo product, the Gamecube, as its name suggests, is shaped like a small, compact cube. The console even had a small handle behind the device to make carrying it around easier.

Each of these details helps to make a console more user-friendly. Professionals with engineering training can help model designs that offer the best convenience, taking data and gamer suggestions into account as they work on the next generation of products.

Use Your Engineering Training to Help Design Controllers of All Kinds

Any gamer who happens to be in technical design school will tell you that it takes a great controller to make a video game console truly special. Gaming controllers have really come a long way since the gamepad and paddles of the 1980s. Today, controllers no longer have cords to connect them to their consoles and work with their consoles through Bluetooth and other wireless signals.

When using your skills as an engineering design technician to help create a controller, it’s important to consider the ease of use, as well as the type of audience to which the product is being marketed. For example, for a young target audience, you could design a more child-friendly controller with a single joystick and a few buttons so as to not be too complex.

 Designing a great controller can make all the difference for gamers!

Designing a great controller can make all the difference for gamers!

Autodesk Inventor Can Help You Prototype New Video Game Consoles!

Prototyping video game consoles are important in order to know whether or not they will perform as intended when used by the consumer. Engineering design technicians can use technical design software, like Autodesk Inventor, to hone designs at an early stage in the creative process.

With Inventor, graduates of an engineering design technology program can create a fully accurate 3D representation of the video game console. Engineering design technicians can then use the software to test for flaws, such as whether or not the disc tray will open and close properly without being jammed by the console’s internal components. This is where Inventor’s collision detection comes in handy. Collision detection allows the engineering design technician to see when certain components clash and prevent the product from functioning properly.

With their unique set of skills, graduates of engineering design technology have a lot to offer to a wide variety of teams in many different industries.

Are you ready to become an engineering design technician?

Fill out the form for more details!