Looking back, how did Nintendo not get sued for this controller? Ergonomically I think it's great and I actually really liked the three-pronged design, but the analog stick seems like it was designed to fail. Couple that with some games that seem like they're just a gamified version of destroying your stick as quickly as possible (Smash Bros. and Mario Party specifically) and it's kind of baffling they got away with continuing to sell these with such a critical design flaw. It makes the Joycon stick drift issue look trivial in comparison.
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* I should add I know they got sued for giving kids blisters in Mario Party, but I meant how did they not get sued for the design of the analog stick itself, which seems designed to fail just from normal use?
>Looking back, how did Nintendo not get sued for this controller?
They kind of did, actually, there was a class action suit related to kids getting Stigmata from playing Mario Party, and Nintendo had to provide gloves for people.
Personally, I really like the concept of the analog stick, it has an amazing smoothness and precision when it's still new and fresh, but it's not durable and the tip is a bit rough on your hands.
Not illegal to make a product which isn't as durable as people would hope. You're not legally expected to excel, the expected usage just can't result in unreasonable personal injury. For instance, a car can be a piece of shit which breaks down quickly, and that's one thing, but if the car is known to implode, that's another.
Applying lubrication helps a lot in reigning in the wear, but the problem persists, and nobody knew they weren't lubed.
>it has an amazing smoothness and precision when it's still new and fresh
It really is amazing how precise the N64 analog stick is compared to modern ones. It's a shame that design got abandoned, I'm sure if you used proper materials they would make for fine analog sticks on modern controllers as well. It's also a shame we've moved away from notches, they make the N64 and GameCube controllers have the best sticks to this day.
>It really is amazing how precise the N64 analog stick is compared to modern ones
I played GoldenEye on real hardware for the first time in about 25 years the other day and I was amazed at how much better it is to control with the N64 pad. The reticle is ridiculously twitchy with any modern analogue stick via an emulator. With the N64 one I was hitting headshots with ease five minutes in.
That's a good point. You're right. And you know what? Playing Starfox 64 with a modern analogue stick is the same shit.
My sticks never broke, are the new 64 controllers bad or something? 6 face buttons should be the standard
Did you never play Smash? Both my controllers from back in the day have really loose sticks incapable of hitting the full range just due to playing Smash Bros. a lot. The internal design of the stick has plastic rubbing against plastic, and the stick's plastic is harder than the plastic of the bowl it sits in, meaning over time it scrapes away at the bowl and stops it from moving properly. They all have this flaw as far as I'm aware (including the new Switch Online ones).
Ok that sounds bad
My old controllers do have a loose stick, but they still work AND are still more precise than modern sticks, even if loosened (try playing any N64 game that requires aiming with anything other than a N64 controller).
But yeah, wish they didn't get loose.
Hardware failing is not uncommon in vidya history though, look at all these early model PS1 with failing lasers, people having to turn the console upside down for it to work.
>(try playing any N64 game that requires aiming with anything other than a N64 controller).
This is why I hope to one day score a steel stick.
>Hardware failing is not uncommon in vidya history though
True. There's also the NES, that cartridge elevator just invites potential problems. At least those problems are pretty easy to fix though, and there's always the toploader NES.
For two reasons. They didn't anticipate people would be playing these games for 30 years straight. It was also one of the first of its kind and hindsight is 20:20.
>implying it took anywhere near 30 years for the stick to wear out
This was a super common problem during the era. I only actively played my N64 for a couple years, and during that time both my controller's sticks got worn to the point that characters don't reach a full run in many games (again, mostly just due to playing Smash a lot). I'd imagine if you were playing shit competitively they'd have worn out in a few months. They were practically disposable.
>implying
The top-selling games every year from 1996-1999 were all N64 games in the USA. It may have had a lot fewer games, but the games it did have were hugely successful. It was also the multiplayer system of choice.
Not enough people even owned an N64 for this to happen, it's like how the Wii U had stick drifting issues but it didn't become a big thing until the Switch also had it
Can fix then back to feeling completely normal. Kitsch bent N64 stick replacement parts. They're cheap as frick. Grab some super lube with ptfe and put it on any area of friction.
I've heard mixed things about those, do they restore the sticks back to the full ranges and everything? Do they require any extra frickery with the plastic or is it just assemble and drop it in?
It's really easy and cheap. It doesn't feel like a controller fresh out of the box. Feels like one that's been used a bit that you wouldn't complain about. There's no frickery, you just unscrew it and put the new pieces of plastic where the old one were and lube any areas where the plastic touches. Maybe a half assed 5 second sanding if there's plastic poking out somewhere. I just ran the controller test real quick to show an example of how it is. For better results, you gotta buy metal parts
Thanks for posting that test, those results seem pretty good, especially considering all the OEM sticks are worn out by now and won't give the ideal values anyway. Might pick up some of those parts then, especially since they're cheap as frick.
I just put a metal bowl in a controller with fresh kitsch bent stick and gears a few minutes ago and this is how it came out. Was 45 bucks for the bowl. Feels a bit smoother and the stick noticeably locks into the gate more easily. I'm pretty satisfied with the improvement, but for $45 it's definietely an autistic buy compared to the kitsch bent bowl. I guess the improved longevity is attractive too.
Honestly, $45 for an OEM-style stick that never breaks doesn't really sound that bad, if you play N64 enough for it to be worth the investment.
That's what I'm doing. The parts should show up in a few days.
No, you're a moron. You'd have to be a huge fricking gorilla to accidentally break the N64 controller. That shit was made back when Nintendo were known for durability, the Fisher Price of console manufacturers; that's why we used to joke about "Nintendium." That's why my picrel (a bombed-out Game Boy from the Gulf War that still fricking runs just fine providing it's fed AC power) exists.
The N64 controller destroyed palms. Palms - or thumbs - did nothing to this beast.
The Switch on the other hand? The build quality is fricking garbage. I know this is anecdotal, but I don't fricking care: My original four N64 controllers survived weekly "lads' nights" where a bunch of rowdy teenage boys would get together and fight and eat while playing multiplayer games. All four of them are still in perfect condition. But my fricking Switch? I've had to send the joycons back to Nintendo TWICE for "repairs" that never do jack shit. My friend's joycons have the same issue. Even when they aren't drifting, the range is pathetic. Every other console I own sits under the big TV on the other side of the living room, where it can be seen from the couch. The Switch? That has to sit on the fricking coffee table, like 7 feet closer, or the joycons are constantly dropping out.
Face it, Nintendo can't build shit anymore.
>You'd have to be a huge fricking gorilla to accidentally break the N64 controller.
Or just a normal human being. The bottom of the stick scrapes against the bottom of the housing and wears away at it over time. It's not a matter of whether or not the stick will wear out, it's a matter of how long it will take. If yours never wore out it's because you didn't play games that demanded you to be aggressive with the stick. It is a guaranteed thing that will happen after a lot of use.
I'm not calling you a liar, my post was hyperbolic and I totally accept that hardware fails over time (I've spent enough time watching pinball machine restoration videos, which are very relaxing, to have seen that in detail.) But I do find it strange because the rough treatment I described went on for literally years, and Smash was our absolute favourite game - yet it's the game people are naming as a particularly bad offender (along with Mario Party, which granted, I didn't own) and yet as I said, all four of my controllers are fine.
Maybe if I hook them up to the diagnostic tool shown in
I'll see the damage that I can't detect from occasional play, but I still find it odd that my controllers never failed. Truthfully, a part of me suspects that this is about manufacturing generation, since we see the same dichotomy in, for example, the PS2: Launch models in most regions are prone to laser voltage drift over time, later models aren't. The PSP is a similar story in reverse, with earlier models being more prone to failure.
In that light it's quite possible that the hardware I was buying (in the UK c. 1995-96) was more robust than whatever people in this thread generally had access to. Or maybe I just got lucky. Or maybe I'M the gorilla and I can't detect it. Who knows.
Sorry, this is unfamiliar terminology. What's a level 3 plate?
with smash i think it depends on how good a player was with doing those smash attacks
i definitely remember seeing kids lean in with practically their whole body trying to pull those off. they were just dumb and didnt realize how easy the input could be. its just a flick.
but yea if you did that every time as hard as you could, you prolly would frick up your stick after a while
absolutely nothing compared to 4 kids all simultaneously using their palms to press the stick down into the shitty cheap plastic bowl it sits on and trying to race to see who could spin it around the fastest
the looseness of the stick is DIRECTLY caused by the bottom of the stick and the bowl both being the same cheap plastic, and wearing down from being scraped against each other over and over. thats why when you take old ones apart youll open the analog stick and a bunch of plastic dust will fall out. you grind down a mm or so of plastic and its ogre: that stick will be loose as frick forever
Yeah, your explanation makes sense. Thinking back on it, the guys who came over to play Smash every week for hours on end for years DID at least understand that smash attacks require, as you say, just a little flick. Maybe it's because we were all 13+ so we weren't literal moronic children and understood that hardware isn't invincible.
But yeah, thinking about those Mario Party games in this context is hilarious and awful. I've only played Mario Party on emulators (or the new Switch one, which is actually good again) and quickly determined that those sections were easiest passed by using my thumb and index finger to grip the top of the stick, rather than using my palm to rotate it... and maybe that's a consequence of the modern analogue sticks I've been using.
Also, yeah, it's quite notable that Mario Party 2 onwards contain a lot less of that shit.
kids just get really into vidya and tend to have white-knuckled death-grips on whatever theyre playing
as you get older and more experienced you usually realize that being light on your fingers is the way to do it, as youre less tense and can do inputs faster that way
even then it wasnt much of an issue before analog sticks, as buttons/dpads were designed specifically for being mashed like a trillion times. sure they break too, but its far less noticeable. as soon as a stick even starts to crap out, it becomes almost unplayable
all that said, ill still stick up for the N64s crappy design. for 96 it was decades ahead of other analog sticks in terms of its granularity.
if they had used something not moronic/cheap, like metal instead of plastic for the stick/bowl, then theyd prolly still be fine
This is probably true. I was a moronic child in the N64 days so that could explain a lot.
Oh lol, that's quite a claim then. Would be interesting to see the mad lad who invented kevlar (and who shoots himself in the chest while wearing every year as a reminder of his own mortality) test that out.
Its an old joke but Nokia3310s have been shown to survive some firearms (sadly not rifles though) and they've been through a lot of abuse and still work.
>guy who invented kevlar
That was a woman actually, a chemist at DuPont named Stephanie Kwolek. Passed away from old age some few years back.
Some older body armors made with different materials had some ballsy inventors shooting themselves in vests they made. In later years there was also Richard Davis, who founded Second Chance Body Armor, and he did that a bunch of times,even did live demonstrations when selling to agencies and departments.
Overall a good brand at the time, and if you look on YouTube you can find some entertaining videos Davis gave out as promotional material, but he was also pretty crooked. Second Chance developed a new kind of body armor from a material named 'Zylon', which had a higher ballistic rating than their Kevlar ones, but what they had neglected to tell anyone was that it had a MUCH shorter lifespan.
Soft body armors all have a shelf life, where the fibers eventually dry out and degrade, losing their strength, so they need periodic replacement. Second Chance's Zylon vests were very poor in this department, they suffered particularly from warm weather and humidity, and this eventually came to light when two cops were seriously injured after their Zylon vests completely failed to stop shots they were supposedly rated for, well within their proclaimed lifespan.
This became a huge legal case where the feds sued the frick out of Davis (and they found audio of him proving he was fully aware of this problem for a long time, and that he didn't give a frick). He finally settled in 2018.
Some people are too stingy for their own good.
I'm actually upset at all of them for this. I hate the shitty and drifty potentiometer sticks being used these days.
Ah, yeah, it was Richard Davis that I was thinking of. I thought he was the inventor, but I guess not. Looks like RedLetterMedia misinformed me again...
>What's a level 3 plate?
Body armor. The National Institute of Justice in the US defines levels of body armor, based on what kinds of calibers, and certain ammunitions, which a piece of body armor is rated to stop at least a few times. They will test and certify such products, and if a bulletproof vest doesn't even claim to have an NIJ certification and rating, it should not be trusted. (Some people will buy stuff like this from Wish.com and Alibaba)
To get back on the topic of Nintendo durability, I don't know if anyone has ever tested what kind of bullets a good old grey brick Game Boy would stop, and while I don't think it would compare to Lv.3 (which could stop some shots from an AR15/M16, or an AK47/AK74, assuming they're not using armor piercing ammo), I think it would probably stop buckshot and small pistol calibers for a bit.
> Chinese sweatshop products shouldn't be trusted.
Gee color me unsurprised there, only buy from reputable brands when it comes to things relating to your life.
The problem is that those same "reputable brands" buy COMPONENTS from Chinese sweatshops, so you can't avoid it by doing that either. (See
)
>They made a better analogue stick for the next generation console!!
Wow, it's almost like designs improve.
They might BUY Components but they quality control most of it so you are in safer hands.
Some say you could make a level 3 plate out of bunch of old gameboys like you could do with Nokia 3310s.
well the N64 analog stick is the odd one out then, I had an ASCII pad that was and had perfect benchmarks, and I lubed up the gears and within a year, it's already become loose, not unusably so but I've definitely lost alot of degrees of precision with it. so when you say you've never experienced broken analog sticks, I think your just not playing as much n64 as you think you are
i keep telling you zoomies
its mario party
is the design shit and chinsy?
absolutely
but the deciding factor is and always will be:
>did the previous owner of this controller own/play a mario party game?
if no
>buy it. at worst the fwd input might be a little worn but thats an ez fix
if yes
>dont even consider it. its trash
designed obsolescence isnt illegal and nintendo manufactures hardware
im not sure what youd expect
no one gets to sue apple over frickboiphones lasting like 14 months and thats a LOT worse and a LOT more expensive
the N64 only had a lifespan of a few years. a brand new N64 controller had a couple years of moderate/heavy use before theyd start to really crap out. unless mario party was involved in which case it would be utterly destroyed
here, I'm now finding the possibility that it really is just Mario Party, and that my experience is a result of not having owned Mario Party, very funny.
I never owned Mario Party, but I did own Smash, and both my controllers are fricked.
Weird. I guess I stand corrected, then. This is a Works On My Machine™ issue, and it works on mine.
I’m really glad I never bought either of these games
You should at least go and visit classic Smash in an emulator. It's an interesting experience and a lot of fun with more players.
It's an anonymous board moron-chama, I didn't see any of your previous asinine baiting. Like most posters on this board I'm an adult, so I own every console (except, ironically, the PS5, because I got a beefy new PC after it was released and it has no exclusives.) Your weird Sony projection is your own obsession.
>Like most posters on this board I'm an adult, so I own every console
That's just being a consoomer considering the massive overlap between libraries on non-Nintendo consoles.
What a desperate little post. You're bad at this.
I do have to say, I don't think that's true. I'm no fan of what Nintendo has become, but I don't think even the Switch joycon issue was a planned obsolescence ploy. Usually companies are much more overt about that kind of thing, e.g. modern smartphone manufacturers intentionally making it impossible for owners to replace the battery themselves to encourage you to buy a new phone when the battery (the most fallible component) begins to fail. Nor are we talking about the updates phone manufacturers push to force old hardware to run bloated new firmware/software intended for newer devices, to slow them down and force a new purchase.
The joycon issue reeks of cut corners in manufacturing, exactly the same as the Xbox 360 red ring of death issue. And in terms of corporate fallout, they've been similar: both damaged the reputations of their manufacturers considerably, both involved massive replacement campaigns at the company's expense, both saw the companies hit with big (and successful) lawsuits.
The N64 issue is even more innocent IMO: these things WERE built for moronic kids to smash them about, they just weren't built well ENOUGH to tank some of the heavier damage (e.g. Mario Party) and like every other piece of hardware, they weren't designed to do it for 30+ years. I don't think it's even intentional at all, let alone a lawsuit issue.
There is a similar issue today regarding USB charging ports. Many companies use dogshit Chinese components that don't meet spec, including Sony - the PS4 controller has particular problems in this regard. The actual device is very solidly built, but all it needs to render it useless is for the charging port to stop working. Similarly, singling out Sony for this makes no sense - I've lost count of the amount of devices I've owned that had this issue now, practically everything portable.
The Switch issue is absolutely just a case of cut corners in manufacturing/using the cheapest option available. The N64 issue to me feels like an actual design flaw that should have been caught during the initial design of the stick. Having two plastic pieces scrape against each other in normal use is going to cause wear, and it honestly just feels like a massive oversight on Nintendo's part, because the rest of the stick design is really well done. It's just a case of not using the right materials.
Sure, I accept what you're saying there, but by that same logic I'd say that Nintendo should definitely have anticipated the joycon issues, and that Microsoft should definitely have anticipated the red ring of death. (That latter one is particularly obvious. Have you ever seen inside an early 360? It's fricking jam packed, there's almost no room for air flow at all, and the cooling components are the cheapest Chinese dogshit money can buy.)
My point was simply that this is an issue of stupidity (or perhaps wishful thinking) rather than malice, that's all.
This seems like a real question rather than a stupid bait prompt, so have a real answer: If you have a decent PC it's not worth owning ANY consoles anymore. The handful of "exclusives" that Sony and Microsoft consoles have now are a fricking joke. (Demon's Souls Remake on PC soon, baby.) As you allude, you can pretty much play Microsoft's entire library with just a PC game pass subscription. (Yes yes consoomerism oh no, my point here is to illustrate that Microsoft themselves are invested in this ability, since their strategy is to market the Xbox as a budget PC for normies who can't afford or build one.)
The Switch has some worthwhile and brilliant exclusives, but Switch emulation is getting pretty fricking good now. tbh we hacked our Switch as soon as it became possible and never looked back, so most of the time we just put interesting new Switch games on that instead of trying to run them on PC. (PC emulating some games, like SMT Nocturne Remaster, is still janky)
Any console older than the Switch is now trivial to emulate, often accurately. The only reason we use our consoles at all anymore in this house is to play Switch party games (all pirated) or to use the PS4 (it's what's hooked up) as an easy Netflix & chill box for when we want to watch easy slop instead of something from our collection.
The Wii U and 3DS have unique hardware capabilities, but that's it.
>Demon's Souls Remake on PC soon, baby
not even remotely worth it, just emulate the original
There's no netplay that way. Invading people is half the fun of the game.
(Also, my PS3 is, tragically, one of the unhackable models, so connecting my old copy of Demon's Souls to a fan server isn't on the cards.)
Demon's Souls PvP is the worst in the series, people getting invaded just throw and the invaders are all scraping spear trolls
Did they at least fix item duping in the remake? Endless grass munching was part of what made PvP harder to enjoy. But in general, I don't agree with your post: I don't invade people to duel, I invade them to hunt them down. Their consent is not required nor sought. It's about hunting.
If I want to duel, I'll fire up one of the zillions of Souls games that have literal dueling arenas, or just go to one of the old etiquette-based ones (Burg rooftop and first DLC bonfire after Artorias in Dark Souls 1 for example.)
the remake has its own duping glitch
it is just demon's souls but worse, didn't fix any of the problems and has a significantly worse art style thanks to the western devs completely missing the point
>the remake has its own duping glitch
And they didn't fix it? For frick's sake.
You said it bro. Miyazaki said that one of his formative influences with Demon's Souls was capturing the feeling he had as a young boy playing games in English before he could understand the language. He wanted there to be fumbling, incomprehension, trial and error. (IIRC this is why Dark Souls has Resistance, a totally useless stat, too - to make the player realize its uselessness. Poise is the opposite, a barely mentioned stat that radically impacts survivability.)
However, I'd like to say that I think balls hard games are still being made. Casualisation never sticks. People drawn to games crave challenge. The hardcore will never die.
lol i would unironically love watching zoomers get filtered by demon souls strange bullshittery tho
or wienerblocking them at the ol monk
that games so cool i love how it was just willing to throw you down the well if you werent playing good enough.
world tendency was based
reminds me i need a new PS3 controller anyone know where i can get anything worthwhile? should i just grab a refurb? lol i tried my ol reliable logitech PC controller and surprisingly that worked but those sticks are meh
are all 3rd party still garbage?
Which respective exclusives are worth owning both a modern Sony and Microsoft console for? Are there even any? Can you not play every Microsoft game worth owning on PC?
Nintendo fanboys are massively outnumbered by thirdies these days. Ever since Sony consoles became affordable in places like Brazil and India they've taken firm hold over the obnoxious brand loyalty title.
Another N64 controller is le whacky designed thread. Haven't seen these before.
Always from Sony fans
Really? We're talking about shit from 30 years ago on a retro board for adults and you homosexuals still care about console wars?
That's the explanation for why people shitpost about the N64 controller's design so much. If you don't like it, simply look away from the screen.
The explanation for why you replied to me is that you're an obsessed homosexual. If you don't like it, simply look away from the screen.
See how stupid you are?
>I was just pretending to be moronic
>all that said, ill still stick up for the N64s crappy design. for 96 it was decades ahead of other analog sticks in terms of its granularity.
Oh yeah, shit, absolutely. I've been learning more about N64-era production (specifically, inhouse Nintendo production for first-party titles) and I'm consistently impressed. This appears to have been a place and time where the experience of the game came first, before anything else, to the point that the entire console and input method were designed around the best possible experience for Mario 64 (no load times, interface designed from the ground up around 3D movement.) The result is revolutionary, and the same design ethos permeates every little aspect of Nintendo in that era. (For example, adding voices to Starfox 64 made them realise how wienery Fox sounded when he was voiced, so his proud-sounding lines were given to Falco. Adding voice acting also made them want more "stock anime lines" that players would have been waiting to hear, like "Take this to Hell with you!!")
Compare that to the absolutely demiurginal design philosophy that has come to permeate high end game production today and it's night and day.
Throw a stone into a pack of dogs, the hit dog hollers. You didn't have a problem with any post shitting on the N64 controller, that wasn't console warring, but the moment someone mentions Sony you get your hackles up.
>immediate replies
struck a nerve
OP here, frick off. If you could read you would see I think the controller is ergonomically great. The materials used for the stick is the only flaw. The way the stick functions when it isn't worn to shit is amazing. It's probably the most comfortable (outside of the hard plastic used for the stick) and precise controller ever made.
Didn't ask. Stop making unoriginal threads with repeated unoriginal topics.
Discussing an objective design flaw with the way the analog stick's internals work is not the same as "whoa the N64 controller is so whacky, you need three hands to hold this thing, what were they thinking? xDDD" Frick off.
see
Everyone knows that you made this thread to shit on the N64 controller. Your opening line implies that Nintendo should have been sued over it. Just own up to it and stop being a pussy.
In light of the Joycon drift lawsuit where they knowingly are manufacturing a stick that fails (due to much the same reasons, as in dust interfering with the potentiometers), yes, one could reasonably ask why they weren't sued for the same reasons with the N64 controller, since it has a very similar objective design flaw. Not everyone is some Sonypony trying to bait people.
Except every company uses the same potentiometers becuase the source from the same company, so why single out Nintendo?
Probably just a case of the squeakiest gets the grease in regards to the Switch. All modern controllers have that issue but Switch is owned by lots of normalgays and children who's parents are probably pissed that the $200 toy they bought so Timmy would shut the frick up is broken.
>Switch is associated with normalgays and children
>it's a $200 toy purchased for Timmy
>totally not shitposting and consolewarring btw
Transparent.
>so why single out Nintendo?
Dominating the console war + vocal fanboys. Pretty obvious.
So why did you only mention the issue with Nintendo analogues when literally every controller has the same exact issue? Why mention Nintendo's Joycon drift lawsuit and not the Sony Dualsense lawsuit? You're shit at this mate.
Because the N64 wasn't made by Sony so the Dualsense lawsuit would be irrelevant? Nintendo made the best analog stick of all time with the GameCube so they're obviously capable of doing better. I don't know why you think pointing out a flaw makes someone anti-Nintendo.
It's on track to outsell the fricking Wii Anon, the vast majority of Switch owners are casual gamers who only play Animal Crossing, and children. Juts like the vast majority of PS2 owners were low IQ normalgays who only played GTA and Madden. It's like this for any popular console.
Literally every consumer demographic report shows that most Switch owners are in their 20s and 30s. Kids aren't even interested in Nintendo, they follow their favourite twitch personalities and play mobile games and streamerbait like Lethal Company.
>Discussing an objective design flaw with the way the analog stick's internals work
Wow. Never saw that topic discussed on /vr/ before, ever.
https://desuarchive.org/vr/search/image/bZcc6FWjZhSynxxcmy98Nw/type/op/
About half of those OPs don't mention the stick wear issue at all, and a good deal of them are speaking positively about the controller. The idea that they were all made by a singular entity trying to shit all over your favorite childhood toy is legitiamtely insane. You should seek help. That image is used frequently when discussing the controller because it's one of the first that comes up on Google and most people don't take original pictures of their controllers whenever they want to start a thread on fricking Ganker.
see
>Sony
>Consolewar homosexualry
Wrong board