643
i mean
(thelemmy.club)
Still beats flying
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It was designed at a transition point between joysticks and the D-pad. Your right hand goes on the right prong for the A, B, and C buttons. Your left hand should be on the center prong when using a game designed for the joystick, or on the left prong when using a game designed for the D-pad. It's not the most elegant design, but it's really not that hard to figure out.
It's honestly baffling people still riff on this. Anyone that's held the controller for 2 seconds understands it.
You're right it's just the system had very few games where the d pad was the obvious primary control device.
What everyone here is really missing is the ahead of its time Golden eye 2 controller two stick setup. They knew where things were going the controller was just a little too soon.
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It's gotta be Zoomers looking at it with no frame of reference. Anyone who played this at the time would have recognized the layout here; they were taking the SNES controller, adding an extra set of buttons to be more in line with the 6 button layout popularized by Sega, and then sticking a joystick in the middle. Assigning the c-buttons as directional was actually pretty insightful. They work for camera controls on stuff like Mario 64, but they also function as a top-row/bottom-row for strong-attack/light-attack on D-pad fighting games like Mortal Kombat.
It's not just Zoomers, I grew up when the big systems were PSX and N64. I thought it then, and it still strikes me as valid, that controller looks as though it were designed by some entity entirely unfamiliar with human anatomy. The fact that you could figure out what they intended is ultimately irrelevant as to whether or not it was a good design. The dual shock came out a year after the N64, with a much more comfortable to use anh intuitive design, and I think it's telling that pretty much every major console since has used a controller that takes far more after the Dual Shock design in terms of placement and orientation of the joysticks in respect to other buttons.
I just left two long comments about this, but tl;dr, there's no DualShock without Nintendo inventing this derpy thing first. DualShock was an industry defining design, but they were refining the functionality Nintendo created.
Or you’re like me and you put your hand on the left pron and stretch your thumb onto the joystick anyway. Middle prong be damned.
How the hell did you use the Z-trigger?
Middle finger stretched to it.
I apparently have large hands.
LOL, yeah, you'd kinda have to.
Yup. Middle finger. It's a large hand person thing.
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This is why hiring the "why not both" girl as lead hardware designer is not always the best strategy
I mean, at the time it was designed, "both," pretty much was the right choice. Without the D-pad a lot of the titles they could reliably develop, like fighting or puzzle games, would have been incredibly difficult to get working well, but without the joystick, they couldn't launch with titles like Mario 64. It's easy to look at the PS1 Duelshock controller and assume they were idiots, but original PS1 controller only had a D-pad. The N64 beat the PS1 to the joystick by two years, and while it was much derpier than the Playstation's solution, it was integrated from day one.
Idk if both was the "right" choice, but given the virtual boy was a ~year prior... there is definitely wisdom in playing things a little more cautious, which is what I would say the N64 controller represents: a justified fear to commit to the analog stick and remove the D-pad.
Honestly, I think, "both," really was the only choice. No one had developed for a joystick-exclusive console since the Atari days. Most third-party developers would have had a tough time porting and adapting their games over to an exclusively joystick layout. The other consoles of that generation, the Saturn and Playstation, both had D-pad only controllers and D-pad/joystick combination controllers; no one went joystick only. The N64 design was imperfect, but it allowed them to launch Mario 64 and Mortal Kombat Trilogy in the same year (and it was a step up from Sega's crack at it).
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The designer of the controller had 3 arms and always wondered why people didn't like the design.
Better have a long tongue to reach the "Z" button with.
Yoshis tongue was based on the lead designers
Regular length tongue is fine. It's just not inserted all the way in the picture.
Understood. My experience deepthroating N64 controllers is ...uh... limited.
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The left hand goes on the left or the middle depending on the game.
Gotta get good enough to throat it down then tongue the clit
I still don't get how they ever approved this design.
It was the early days of 3d gaming consoles. And as nobody knew how control schemes will develop they created this controller with three different kinds of input schemes:
- Left on left/ right on right for traditional plattformers
- Left on middle / right on right for 3d games that require that analog stick
- Left on left / right on middle ............ yeah I don't know either. Twin stick shooters perhaps?
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I had a cheat code for some game where I definitely had to use my mouth or face to move the analog stick.
I had to use this technique for Shadows of the Empire. I want to say it was the one that let you change between the Outrider, X-Wing, and Tie Fighter.
You might be right, it might have been that game. You had to hold it like halfway to the left (or maybe my controller was just old).
Should be 3 mouths.
~~mouth~~ anus
I've just been stabilizing it in my bellybutton. I need to work on my flexibility.
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Honestly, this picture is close to accurate if you were trying to input the code for the debug menu in Shadows of The Empire.
Still a better time than whatever nightmare gaming is nowadays.
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Is the middle prong not for perineum stimulation?
The first time I picked it up my hands were already large enough that it just felt normal to have each hand on the outer grips. I've been called a freak. Feared by children and scorned by adults. I was cast out of my village. Given no quarter.
It's been a lonely life, but I yam what I yam.
Fun Fact: Holding it that way makes it a lot easier to break the joystick since you're putting force on it from an angle. As an adult I've had to order after market joysticks with thicker sticks to replace the ones I broke as a kid. They're actually much better with way smoother movement.
Wtf is that controller? Some kind of new-fangled wireless abomination? That's not original hardware. And, since it is new, why did they put no effort into fixing the joystick? You're just going to get a floppy dick stick in a few years with it anyway.
The purple version was the best. Mine from 1999 has had the most use and still works the best. I've bought new aftermarket controllers but none stand up to the old translucent purple.
no wonder i was so bad at south park 64
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this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2026
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