Nintendo life and the N64 controller

Posted 6 Oct 2014 by Squid

Alex Olney from Nintendo life wrote an article on the N64 controller a few weeks ago, and here I am to comment on it, as per usual. Now, the article makes a few points, so I’ll go through them one at a time

The N64 controller was the only (successful) controller that had an analogue stick at the time

Yep, this is very true. The PS1 and Saturn (and Jaguar/3DO) all had the more traditional D-pad only design. It wasn’t until the N64 came out that everyone else released their own version of a joystick controller. As Alex states, The plain old D-pad just isn’t enough for games in full 3D.

Nintendo was placing a lot of faith in this new control method

While this is true, there’s a little tidbit he forgot to mention. The controller has three handles, the main ones are the middle and right; but there is another configuration that is the left and right handles.

The biggest innovation to come from the expansion slot on the controller was undoubtedly the Rumble Pak

That’s true. Even though I personally never used it because it gave the controller too much weight and I never had AAA batteries lying around. It has been put into pretty much every controller since then. Though to be honest, I preferred the idea of a transfer pak that allowed the console game to adapt to the portable game save file. I think that’s something really cool and is not exploited enough in today’s world of wireless technology. How cool would it be if Smash Bros 4 on the Wii U used the 3DS version instead of the Amiibo?