And it happened again!
this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2025
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This was already real though...
im going to be sick
I've actually used that.
I love the concept of getting rid of the 3 prong disaster, but the past of me that gets given absolutely nuts by asymmetry gates the way it feels in my hand.
It gets partial credit for at least making it fully wield-able, but drive nothing to advantage of it (because it couldn't since this was like .000000001% of all controllers made), the benefit was useless, and the downside hurt even more because of that.
Ah yes, the two input options, + and O
Good God.
The actual Dreamcast controller was a fucking mess, fight me about it. Such a garbage blob.
That's a Saturn controller
My brain has an aneurysm. It totally is, but Imma pretend for the sake of the comment that it was the Dreamcast.
That actually looks cute.
Both of those make way more sense then they have any right to.
But this one is what it should've been.
Six face buttons need to make a comeback. And no the shoulder buttons or the stick clicks are not exactly the same and the d-pad as non-move buttons sucks because you have to release the left stick. I want more buttons to assign items to like in Ocarina of Time. Like Echoes of Wisdom could have used a few extra buttons to assign echoes to.
Kind of love this tbh
I mean, a timeline where Sony actually kept working together with Nintendo on the SNES add-on is kinda plausible.
Probably a timeline that kills Sega before they can make a Dreamcast.
That's the nightmare scenario, where the video game industry is controlled by one player, the Nintendo-Sony joint.
Prototype PS controllers were wild.
They look like alternate 3D0 controllers.
Are the buttons in #3 shaped like the 4chan logo??
In this universe, the Rez vibrator is built into every controller.
Like this rezz?
https://music.apple.com/ch/artist/rezz/1046759940?l=en-GB
Yea, those are great vibrations!
So hyped seeing her at rampage!
And yet people would still hold it incorrectly.
C'mon man... I need The Claw to run, jump, attack and move the camera all at once. 😩
I kind of miss having a three handed controller. I never know what to do with the extra now.
Idk if Sony would actively make the worlds worst controller even in an alternate timeline
A lot of people really liked that N64 controller, though I feel it would have been an unnecessary design if that Z button wasn't included.
Resident N64 pad defender here. It's fine to dislike the controller, but I'm never really sure if the "I don't have three hands!" complaint is a joke or just based on people who never played any N64 games or what.
You're not supposed to use all three prongs, ever. It's just a hedge-betting controller. Nintendo was afraid people wouldn't like the new, 3D style of game control and would demand a return to traditional D-pad input.
The N64 controller was their solution: if 3D movement is just a fad that dies out, well, move your hand over a couple of inches and forget about the analog stick. Now you've basically got a SNES pad with six face buttons and better ergonomics.
Obviously, 3D took over that whole generation and there's probably less than 10 games that need D-pad movement, so it ended up being fairly pointless in hindsight. But I can't argue with anybody who starts their design process with "What if gamers hate this new style of input?" because when don't they.
The fact that you're going to have to ignore a third of the controller at any given time is the reason why it's badly designed. The Sega Saturn 3D was in development at the same time as the N64 and pad came out two weeks later and had a much better design that allowed the D-pad and analog stick to be used with the same thumb, in a configuration that would continue to be used to this day.
The advantage of the N64 approach is that it allows both the D-pad and analog stick to be primary inputs. They're both ideally positioned under the thumb, because they're the only input the thumb needs to interact with. It's a tradeoff between the number of available inputs and ergonomics. Every other controller has to compromise on one or the other. e.g. The DualShock is obviously a SNES controller with two sticks slapped in the middle, but since it was an update to the standard (D-pad focussed) PlayStation controller, they're not at the angle where your thumb naturally rests. Successive PlayStation controllers moved the stick up and out slightly to bring it more in line with the thumb.
The Saturn 3D Control Pad along with other "modern" controllers like the Xbox line, GameCube and Switch have the opposite layout, where the analog stick is the natural resting place for the thumb and you crane to reach the less-accessible D-pad. With the benefit of hindsight, this is probably the "right answer", because most games since the fifth generation are designed around the analog stick, with the D-pad occasionally used as four additional action buttons which you either don't need at all, or only use sparingly. I don't know that this style of game (e.g. tactical shooters with squad orders on the D-pad) really did or could have existed in the N64 generation, so the lack of D-pad access ends up being irrelevant to the kind of games that were actually coming out in the era.
If you released a console today with the N64 controller, that would be a terrible idea, because there are the kinds of games coming out that expect you to have four triggers, two analog sticks and reasonably convenient access to the D-pad. But I can't think of any N64 games that were worse because you couldn't access the D-pad. What games needed those extra inputs? What games didn't get made because those inputs weren't convenient? Coming at it the other way, what games were released for the Saturn 3D Control Pad that wouldn't have been possible on N64?
Honestly, I still use the D-pad for every game I play; it's what I'm comfortable with.
Hell no lol. It always made my hand cramp and lock up and it came out when I was 11 or so. And the thumb stick giving kids blisters because it's just a plastic stick with no soft rubber on top. Like wtf is that choice?
N64 has less buttons to work with than it's predecessor due to this stupid three handle set up. And 99% of games are made with analog stick in mind, so I can't imagine a scenerio in which holding it is at all comfortable. I don't know what is there to like here, it's a step down in every way.
Hold up. First of all, the word you want is "fewer" buttons.
Secondly, that's still just incorrect. There aren't fewer buttons.
C buttons are meant for camera controls so a good amount of games did have fewer buttons to use. And dpad's positioning meant for most games it served no use at all. There is no reason both couldn't have been on the same handle.
It's not as bad as I thought it was yesterday when I wrote without thinking about it too much but it's still a big step down from the SNES controller. There is a reason a lot of people prefer modern replacements like Brawler64
the alternate universe where the sony actually made that CD drive for the snes