🕹️ Joystick emoji

The Joystick emoji 🕹️ was approved under Unicode 7.0 in 2014. On most major platforms, the emoji depicts a joystick controller with a black base with one or two red buttons, a grey stick, and a red, ball-shaped top. The Google version of the emoji has a blue base. Depending on the platform, the joystick is either depicted realistically or is stylized.

Joystick controllers, such as the one depicted in the Joystick emoji 🕹️, were used with the early video game consoles of the 1970s and 1980s, such as the Atari 2600. Even by the 1990s, joysticks had largely been replaced by handheld controllers with more buttons. For this reason, the Joystick emoji 🕹️ is often used to specifically refer to old video games and game consoles. At the same time, the Joystick emoji 🕹️ is still commonly used to refer to gaming in general, as many people know that joysticks at one point were used to play video games.