The Gamecube controller was unfairly criticized and is actually one of the most ergonomic and well-designed controllers ever made

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When the first megaman anniversary collection released on gamecube, they reversed the jump and shoot buttons because of the gamecube controller and it was not remappable in options. To this day the hardest challenge is to just play those games.
 
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The mushy triggers felt terrible, the C stick was too small, and it lacked a bumper button opposite Z. 3/10 would not game.

Involuntary Celebrity said:
This has become a zoomer meme lately but there's nothing wrong with the n64 controller if you understand it as a product of its time.
Yeah a third of it turned out to be decorative, but it functioned great as a controller (except for all the ones manufactured for the US market that they forgot to lubricate, lol eat shit), and they were hedging their bets with both the market and developers at a time when the stick could have easily scared people off. Instead of playing that conservatively they really leaned into it and made both the controller and the console look like some alien shit to help frame the jump to the "64-bit" era as a big deal. I still have a marketing VHS they sent out when you preordered that's like 70% just talking about the controller and rumble pak.

People were sometimes confused by it or made three-hand jokes back in the day but it's telling that outright shitting on it is a phenomenon that only really started up with the modern fad of retro hype and collectible scamming.
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I didn't hate the N64 controller, but it is not a well designed controller virtue of the fact that half of it is inoperable depending on which configuration the game uses.
 
#lurker said:
I didn't hate the N64 controller, but it is not a well designed controller virtue of the fact that half of it is inoperable depending on which configuration the game uses.
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well, it's 1/3rd and that's basically still true of modern controllers whenever a game doesn't the d-pad at all. they just put it on a goofy prong with an extra alternate index finger button.

they did that on purpose though to make it SUPER CLEAR to an audience used to "normal" previous-gen controllers that you could use the stick OR the pad depending on the game so it wouldn't scare em off

they did something like that with the original famicom too, which is why it had the cable oddly coming out the side for players/devs used to the "remote" style controllers of earlier consoles which were held longways, with the intention some games might still do that (and i've read interviews mentioning japanese players weirding people out with their weird tetris grips as a result).
few games did, although it'd work better for shit like smash tv that had an optional dual-controller control scheme.

sony's move of just bolting the sticks in a secondary position then acting like it's a part of their branding forever to leave em there when it became apparent quickly that analogue input would be primary is a lot dumber design-wise. you couldn't add an extra prong on modern controllers because they'd be heavy, but the 64 controller is light as fuck so the criticism is basically aesthetic
 
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#lurker said:
What games are you playing that don't utilize the d-pad? Literally every game uses it to some capacity.
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Plenty of platformers, racing games, fighting games? actually basically every genre outside fps/third person games have titles that don't need it at all. Or let you pick one or the other (also a somewhat common use case on the n64).
And even among FPS games there are plenty that use nothing besides d-up for a flashlight toggle or map ping, just because it's there--and that's basically a current/last gen convention. There was a period where everyone wondered if we still needed d-pads at all, remember that?
 
Involuntary Celebrity said:
Plenty of platformers, racing games, fighting games? actually basically every genre outside fps/third person games have titles that don't need it at all. Or let you pick one or the other (also a somewhat common use case on the n64).
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A game doesn't need to use it primarily to get use out of it. The more buttons on a controller the better.
You can hand-wave it as just useless shortcuts but it goes a long way to stop a game from being bogged down in unnecessary menus.
 
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#lurker said:
A game doesn't need to use it primarily to get use out of it. The more buttons on a controller the better. You can hand-wave it as just useless shortcuts but it goes a long way to stop a game from being bogged down in unnecessary menus.
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Great, we agree that the n64 controller ruled then.
 
Involuntary Celebrity said:
Great, we agree that the n64 controller ruled then.
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An Xbox controller has:
2 analog sticks, 2 analog buttons, 2 triggers, 2 bumpers, 1 d-pad, 4 face buttons, 1 back button, and 1 start button; available to use at all times without doing gymnastics.

Depending on game configuration a N64 controller has either:
1 analog stick, 6 face buttons, 1 bumper, 1 trigger, and 1 start button
or
1 d-pad, 6 face buttons, 2 bumpers, and 1 start button

It's wasted inputs and less buttons. No, we don't agree.
 
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#lurker said:
An Xbox controller has:
2 analog sticks, 2 analog buttons, 2 triggers, 2 bumpers, 1 d-pad, 4 face buttons, 1 back button, and 1 start button; available to use at all times without doing gymnastics.

Depending on game configuration a N64 controller has either:
1 analog stick, 6 face buttons, 1 bumper, 1 trigger, and 1 start button
1 d-pad, 6 face buttons, 2 bumpers, and 1 start button

It's wasted inputs and less buttons. No, we don't agree.
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alright well instead of comparing it to a console that released 5 years later, let's compare it to the other console at the time which had an analogue/digital toggle button to turn the sticks on with its optional analogue controller and count how many games used the stick and d-pad at the same time.
if you're now gonna say it all comes down the the psx's one extra shoulder button you're really gonna be stretching that "half of it" statement huh

since my whole argument is that it's a product of its era i'd feel pretty dumb if we did agree
 
Involuntary Celebrity said:
alright well instead of comparing it to a console that released 5 years later, let's compare it to the other console at the time which had an analogue/digital toggle button to turn the sticks on with its optional analogue controller and count how many games used the stick and d-pad at the same time.
if you're now gonna say it all comes down the the psx's one extra shoulder button you're really gonna be stretching that "half of it" statement huh

since my whole argument is that it's a product of its era i'd feel pretty dumb if we did agree
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You're not understanding the point. Being a "product of its era" is irrelevant. The fact is that inputs are lost depending on configuration which makes it a very flawed controller.
 
#lurker said:
You're not understanding the point. Being a "product of its era" is irrelevant. The fact is that inputs are lost depending on configuration which makes it a very flawed controller.
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oh okay i thought the point was about real estate but sure we can pretend it was this all along

inputs are lost? it doesn't provide extra buttons for games to use for all the zero games at the time (of the generation, not even that one console) that would have used them?

just to clarify that we've both slid to the same dimension to discuss this point that you've definitely been arguing all along, you're currently complaining that the original psx controller is objectively bad because it doesn't have a touchpad, right?
 
Involuntary Celebrity said:
inputs are lost? it doesn't provide extra buttons for games to use for all the zero games at the time (of the generation, not even that one console) that would have used them?
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Games didn't utilize them BECAUSE of the controller. If the controller was forward thinking you would have seen games utilize buttons properly.
 
probably biggest thing to piss me off about a controller was the DC positioned as The 2d Fighting System After Saturn but not enough buttons to properly taunt in six button fighters
 
#lurker said:
Games didn't utilize them BECAUSE of the controller. If the controller was forward thinking you would have seen games utilize buttons properly.
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So, literally yes to the touchpad thing. I see.
Fuck, they forgot motion controls too. If only the multimodal controller with an analogue stick in 1996 and a giant dedicated expansion port that introduced vibration and fucking in-controller cross-platform transfer and heartrate sensors and shit had been more forward-thinking.
 
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