I wouldn't know - I forgot about it! xP
Jokes aside, the ones I can remember that started to be a success on arcades back then was the guns with lasers.
Correct me if Im wrong, but it seems there are no more games being developed for current gen with "buy this joystick shaped as a gun and shoot your screen pixels!".
This is probably a sub category of motion controls that @Pooka talked about, but motion controls are pretty much still being used a lot on Nintendo Switch and VR, or would it not be categorized as the same thing?
I remember there was one specific kind of arcade machine that had a big screen and two beefy heavy joystick-guns normally collored in blue and red, obviously for two players, and games like House of the Dead, that Resident Evil people forgot about too, then later Dino Crisis 4 (the rail shooter one which I can't recall the name).
The first game with joystick guns I remember playing was a SNES game (?) where you had to shoot on ducks flying.
A big dog would 'talk' to you on the screen, make a countdown or something like it and then bark or jump at the ducks for you to shoot when they fly. So much time though, I can't remember the details.
[Images randomly selected from search engine.]
Edit:
A bit of research and found the term for this technology, huh!
"Light Gun Shooter", had no idea about this.
The game where you shoot ducks was called... "Duck Hunt", for the NES.
Wikipedia has a whole page dedicated to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-gun_shooter Really interesting stuff.
[After edit: The game I most have memories playing was called Time Crisis I, II, III, IV on arcades. It was quite fun. :)]
Here's a description on Time Crisis:
Time Crisis is a light gun shooter arcade game released by Namco in December 1995. It was later ported for the PlayStation in 1997, bundled with the Guncon light gun controller. Time Crisis is a three-dimensional first person rail shooter similar to Virtua Cop and The House of the Dead installments, in which the player holds a light gun and goes through the motions of firing at on-screen enemies. Time Crisis is best known for its cover system, in which players can duck behind cover to avoid enemy fire and reload his weapon.
There are three stages, each consisting of three areas and a boss battle. Unique features are described here in: A foot pedal which performs multiple functions: when the pedal is released, the player takes cover to conserve hit points while reloading the gun. While the pedal is released, the player cannot attack. In console conversions, a button command replicates the foot pedal's functions. The player loses a life if he/she is hit by a direct bullet or obstacle whilst not taking cover, with the game ending if he/she loses all lives. A light gun (introduced in Point Blank) which utilized a special memory chip to synchronize areas of the screen's image as the player rotates the gun around.
The light gun also features a blowback function which simulates real-life gun recoil. A countdown timer, recharged by clearing an area of enemies. As running down the clock causes an instant game over, the player must take risks, shooting enemies rapidly and hiding only when necessary. A time extension is rewarded when an area is passed and there are also time bonuses awarded for shooting certain enemies quickly. The PlayStation port features an exclusive side-story mode, in which the player's performance, such as how quickly he can clear an area, affects the path he takes through the game, resulting in multiple possibilities.
