This was such a fun read, but also painful to imagine needing to hold on to them to play games.
I DO wish that there were some size options though...I have child-sized hands and some of the modern controllers are too big for me.
I hope they'll start innovating on this formula though -- I heard rumours that Sony was going to include heart rate and sweat production sensors on their PS5 controllers, but I don't think that ever came to fruition.
Thanks! Yeah, thank goodness our hands are spared such pain these days.
Size options seem like a no-brainer to me. In this day and age of increasing accessibility, I wonder if they're not too far off.
Heart rate and sweat production sensors are a neat idea, but those would absolutely raise controller costs. Maybe those could be optional in a Super Deluxe Dual Sense controller or something.
I just googled it (having never seen one in real life, for all the obvious reasons), and the Jaguar pad, for all its faults, had molded grips on the back. Was it the first controller to do this? If so, we should give it is due. It was the Wii U gamepad of its day—comfortable grips on the back and a big, useless thing in the middle.
I feel like a bad researcher, I can't seem to find an image of the Jaguar pad from the back? I can't remember the first controller I ever used with molded grips, so there's a good chance the Jaguar pad might be the first. Early 90s is pretty darn early for such an innovation, but yeah, that number pad... swings and roundabouts.
Excellent, thanks! Until this moment, I have never seen the back of a Jaguar controller. Looks like it would feel comfortable to hold, if nothing else!
Speaking of “Nintendo thumb”, I had a Turbotouch 360 for NES. They sent it to me for free as a promotion.
It’s much-maligned but I learned how to use it and ended up loving it. Then I didn’t use it for a year after I got my SNES, and I could never get the hang of it again.
I had to remind myself what a Turbotouch 360 was, and woooaaaah, seeing that thing on Google Images brought me back to reading EGM and GamePro, where it was constantly advertised.
The slogan on the box for the NES controller is "Higher scores or your money back!" I wonder if any young obnoxious gamers took them up on that offer.
"You'll love it or your money back" seems like a marketing pitch that peaked in the 80s or 90s. Or maybe I just learned to tune it out. If it has indeed died off, I imagine people claiming their money back was enough to do it.
Speaking of the EGM ads, that's related to how I got the free one. Also I'll share a little bit of gaming history that I've never heard discussed and you might not be aware of.
EGM had this card or page in the issue (maybe GamePro had it too, but I was a more of an EGM guy), with a checklist of many of the advertisements in the issue, asking, "Would you like to learn more about any of these?" and you could then mail it in. And companies would send you mail.
Most of the time it was a little newsletter pamphlet that was basically an expansion of their advertising, an extended promotion of some of their new and upcoming releases. "Here's what to expect from HudsonSoft this year!"
In the era of e-mail, we would consider this newsletter an awful nuisance and start looking for the unsubscribe button within milliseconds. But as a kid that would savor any and all of the scarce information about new and upcoming games, many of which he would never get to play, I think I checked "yes" to almost everything. So I got tons of these newsletters.
But in the case of TurboTouch 360, they just decided to mail me a controller, completely unexpected, for free, in response to my request for more information. With a little letter saying, "Show it to all your friends." Which I did, sure, why not. I think one of my friends even bought one.
To my knowledge, the NES didn't have a single, dominant controller that had turbo. We had the Ascii Pad for SNES, which was amazing. Before the TurboTouch, I used the NES Max when I wanted turbo, and despite the Nintendo brand, that controller was also a weird experiment that kind of sucked. It wasn't all that hard for the TurboTouch to top it.
I remember seeing that card, but always dismissed it. Looking back, I bet those pamphlets would be absolute gold to read now. Did you keep any of them by chance?
Didn't the NES Advantage - the arcade stick - have a Turbo option? I believe it did. I love that controller. So perfect for all the NES arcade ports.
The Ascii Pad for the SNES was brilliant, I have mine and it still works. One of the switches still sticks from where I spilt orange soda on it back in the day. Can't get more 90s than that.
Unfortunately didn’t keep any. I imagine you could write a whole article on them if I did. But we moved a lot growing up and I’ve moved a lot as an adult, so life has forced me to be an anti-hoarder.
Thinking on it, I imagine the materials themselves were mainly for retailers that publishers were trying to convince to stock their games. Maybe they handed them out at trade shows. Those mailed requests from kids like me had to be too rare to be worth producing materials just for us.
And I never liked the NES Advantage, but you’re right that it had turbo. I suppose that’s sort of my point. An arcade stick like that would be really rare for a later console.
Those pamphlets have to be scanned somewhere online, I should look for them, see what I can find. Not hoarding is always the right way to go in life, even if it can produce the occasional "I wish I hadn't gotten rid of that" regret. Positives far outweigh the negatives!
I wished I’d filled out more of those reader service cards. Often you’d get fun little newsletters from the games companies, sometimes even some coupons.
IMO the original Xbox Duke controller was nice compared to the GameCube controller. I remember comparing the two consoles at the time before purchase and the Duke felt right and sturdy. The GameCube controller felt like a child's toy and too small.
Shout out to the Wu-Tang controller for the PS1. Shaped as the hip hop supergroup’s stylized “W” it looks like an absolutely beast in the hand. Decidedly impractical for regular use though.
Perhaps a part 2 is in the offing! So many weird controllers. Like the RCA Studio II controllers are not only keypads, but they’re on the system itself!
This was such a fun read, but also painful to imagine needing to hold on to them to play games.
I DO wish that there were some size options though...I have child-sized hands and some of the modern controllers are too big for me.
I hope they'll start innovating on this formula though -- I heard rumours that Sony was going to include heart rate and sweat production sensors on their PS5 controllers, but I don't think that ever came to fruition.
Thanks! Yeah, thank goodness our hands are spared such pain these days.
Size options seem like a no-brainer to me. In this day and age of increasing accessibility, I wonder if they're not too far off.
Heart rate and sweat production sensors are a neat idea, but those would absolutely raise controller costs. Maybe those could be optional in a Super Deluxe Dual Sense controller or something.
For sure...though I kinda wish those health related things didn't cost extra...it's for our health! Healthy gamers = longer game time!
I just googled it (having never seen one in real life, for all the obvious reasons), and the Jaguar pad, for all its faults, had molded grips on the back. Was it the first controller to do this? If so, we should give it is due. It was the Wii U gamepad of its day—comfortable grips on the back and a big, useless thing in the middle.
I feel like a bad researcher, I can't seem to find an image of the Jaguar pad from the back? I can't remember the first controller I ever used with molded grips, so there's a good chance the Jaguar pad might be the first. Early 90s is pretty darn early for such an innovation, but yeah, that number pad... swings and roundabouts.
Here’s a Reddit post with a rear view (image #7): https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogaming/comments/pop092/a_good_as_new_atari_jaguar_controller_1993/#lightbox
Excellent, thanks! Until this moment, I have never seen the back of a Jaguar controller. Looks like it would feel comfortable to hold, if nothing else!
Speaking of “Nintendo thumb”, I had a Turbotouch 360 for NES. They sent it to me for free as a promotion.
It’s much-maligned but I learned how to use it and ended up loving it. Then I didn’t use it for a year after I got my SNES, and I could never get the hang of it again.
I had to remind myself what a Turbotouch 360 was, and woooaaaah, seeing that thing on Google Images brought me back to reading EGM and GamePro, where it was constantly advertised.
The slogan on the box for the NES controller is "Higher scores or your money back!" I wonder if any young obnoxious gamers took them up on that offer.
"You'll love it or your money back" seems like a marketing pitch that peaked in the 80s or 90s. Or maybe I just learned to tune it out. If it has indeed died off, I imagine people claiming their money back was enough to do it.
Speaking of the EGM ads, that's related to how I got the free one. Also I'll share a little bit of gaming history that I've never heard discussed and you might not be aware of.
EGM had this card or page in the issue (maybe GamePro had it too, but I was a more of an EGM guy), with a checklist of many of the advertisements in the issue, asking, "Would you like to learn more about any of these?" and you could then mail it in. And companies would send you mail.
Most of the time it was a little newsletter pamphlet that was basically an expansion of their advertising, an extended promotion of some of their new and upcoming releases. "Here's what to expect from HudsonSoft this year!"
In the era of e-mail, we would consider this newsletter an awful nuisance and start looking for the unsubscribe button within milliseconds. But as a kid that would savor any and all of the scarce information about new and upcoming games, many of which he would never get to play, I think I checked "yes" to almost everything. So I got tons of these newsletters.
But in the case of TurboTouch 360, they just decided to mail me a controller, completely unexpected, for free, in response to my request for more information. With a little letter saying, "Show it to all your friends." Which I did, sure, why not. I think one of my friends even bought one.
To my knowledge, the NES didn't have a single, dominant controller that had turbo. We had the Ascii Pad for SNES, which was amazing. Before the TurboTouch, I used the NES Max when I wanted turbo, and despite the Nintendo brand, that controller was also a weird experiment that kind of sucked. It wasn't all that hard for the TurboTouch to top it.
I remember seeing that card, but always dismissed it. Looking back, I bet those pamphlets would be absolute gold to read now. Did you keep any of them by chance?
Didn't the NES Advantage - the arcade stick - have a Turbo option? I believe it did. I love that controller. So perfect for all the NES arcade ports.
The Ascii Pad for the SNES was brilliant, I have mine and it still works. One of the switches still sticks from where I spilt orange soda on it back in the day. Can't get more 90s than that.
Unfortunately didn’t keep any. I imagine you could write a whole article on them if I did. But we moved a lot growing up and I’ve moved a lot as an adult, so life has forced me to be an anti-hoarder.
Thinking on it, I imagine the materials themselves were mainly for retailers that publishers were trying to convince to stock their games. Maybe they handed them out at trade shows. Those mailed requests from kids like me had to be too rare to be worth producing materials just for us.
And I never liked the NES Advantage, but you’re right that it had turbo. I suppose that’s sort of my point. An arcade stick like that would be really rare for a later console.
Those pamphlets have to be scanned somewhere online, I should look for them, see what I can find. Not hoarding is always the right way to go in life, even if it can produce the occasional "I wish I hadn't gotten rid of that" regret. Positives far outweigh the negatives!
I wished I’d filled out more of those reader service cards. Often you’d get fun little newsletters from the games companies, sometimes even some coupons.
Me and you both, friend!
Man, how about the wacky mass produced Saturn 3D controller. That thing was gnarly.
The Nights Controller! Yup, that was a weird one for sure.
IMO the original Xbox Duke controller was nice compared to the GameCube controller. I remember comparing the two consoles at the time before purchase and the Duke felt right and sturdy. The GameCube controller felt like a child's toy and too small.
I had a friend of a friend who felt the same way you did. He was like 6’8 or something? Absolutely huge guy. Huge hands. He loved the Duke.
I have small hands. I love the Gamecube controller, haha.
Shout out to the Wu-Tang controller for the PS1. Shaped as the hip hop supergroup’s stylized “W” it looks like an absolutely beast in the hand. Decidedly impractical for regular use though.
That one almost made the cut! I should have included some honorable mentions...
Perhaps a part 2 is in the offing! So many weird controllers. Like the RCA Studio II controllers are not only keypads, but they’re on the system itself!