Nintendo 64 controller

Nintendo 64 controller

Nintendo 64 controller
Manufacturer	Nintendo
Type	Gamepad
Generation	Fifth generation
Input	Rumble Pak
Connectivity	N64 controller port
Predecessor	SNES controller
Successor	Nintendo GameCube controller

The Nintendo 64 controller (NUS-005) is the standard game controller included with the Nintendo 64. Released by Nintendo in late 1996 in Japan and North America, and 1997 in Europe, it features ten buttons, one digital "Control Stick"^{[cn 1]} and a directional pad, all laid out in a "M" shape.

Design

Rear of the Nintendo 64 controller, showing the Z-trigger and expansion port

The controller for the Nintendo 64 was designed to be held in several different positions. It was designed around Super Mario 64. It could be held by the two outer grips, allowing use of the digital D-pad, right-hand face buttons and the "L" and "R" shoulder buttons (but not the "Z" trigger or analog stick). It could be also held by the center and right-hand grip, allowing the use of the single control stick, the right hand-buttons, the "R" shoulder button, and the "Z" trigger on the rear (but not the "L" shoulder button or D-pad). Finally, one controller could be held in each hand with a thumb on each analog stick and index fingers on the "Z" trigger. This setup allowed dual-analog control on some first-person shooters such as Perfect Dark. More often than not the analog stick was used in games while in some, both the control stick and directional pad could be interchangeable (ex: Mortal Kombat Trilogy). Very few games used the directional pad exclusively; two examples are the 3D puzzle game Tetrisphere and the side-scrolling platformer Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards.

The controller also included four "C buttons", which were originally intended to control the camera in the N64's three dimensional environments. However, since the pad only contained three other face buttons, the C-buttons often became assigned to ulterior functions. An example of this is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, where three of the C-buttons can be assigned to secondary items and the upper C-button is used to orient the camera.

European controllers have a special Ferrite core about 4 centimeters from the connector plug, to prevent the user from being shocked by the power being supplied to it by the system if the wires become exposed. It also acts as cable tensioner.

One game, Robotron 64, allowed one player to use two controllers to control an avatar. This way the game played like its predecessor, Robotron 2084. Star Wars Episode 1: Racer, GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark also used this set up for slightly different gameplay experiences (in terms of control, at least) compared to the standard single controller option.

The controller initially came in six colors (grey, black, red, green, yellow and blue) but other colors were released later, many of them coinciding with the release of a similarly color or designed system. Some of these others include: smoke black, watermelon red, jungle green, fire orange, ice blue, grape purple, and special edition colors like gold, atomic purple, extreme green, "Donkey Kong 64" banana bunch yellow, "Pokémon" blue/yellow and "Millennium 2000" platinum.

Analog stick

For many years, console designers and manufacturers ignored analog stick technology, instead preferring the digital D-pad. It was not until the emergence of 3D gameplay that the analog thumb stick was put into widespread use. Using a D-pad in a 3D game greatly limits the players ability to accurately utilize 360° of motion. Some early 3D games like Resident Evil overcame this limitation by assigning the Left and Right directions on the D-pad to spin the character rather than make the character move in that direction.

However, with the prevalence of analog sticks, the aforementioned D-pad limitation was no longer an issue. Though the Nintendo 64 wasn't the first console to use an analog thumb stick (the Vectrex was first), it did popularize the idea. Its release followed Sega's analog Mission Stick for Sega Saturn (which launched on September 29, 1995) as well as Sony's Analog Joystick and was followed during the fifth generation by Sony's Dual Analog and DualShock controllers for the PlayStation system as well as Sega's 3D control pad for their Saturn system.

The N64 Analog stick does not use analog potentiometers. It uses light emitting diodes and photo detectors controlled by sensor wheels. The sensor wheels are plastic hubs which produce a shutter effect allowing for an accurate direct digital read. The sensor wheels give direct correlation to the stick position compared to potentiometers which can change resistance values over time. However gameplay function of the stick itself is not on or off digital, but analog in a sense, the more the stick is pushed the faster a game character would walk or run.

The analog stick was prone to some long-term reliability issues. If used excessively, the stick became "loose", which means it will not fully return to center position, which may render gameplay more difficult by giving unintended, non-user input to the system. This loosening can be caused by rotating it intensively - a common practice in games like Mario Party where it offers an advantage for some mini-games. Excessive rotating of the analog stick even resulted in blisters and burns to the hands, and Nintendo offered protective gloves to prevent injuries.

Rumble Pak

Main article: Rumble Pak § Nintendo 64

The original Rumble Pak, designed for the Nintendo 64 controller, was released in April 1997 to coincide with the release of Star Fox 64 and required two AAA batteries. Its specific use was to provide haptic feedback during gameplay; an effort to make the gaming experience more engaging. It was designed to be inserted into the controller's memory cartridge slot, which prevented the use of the Controller Pak. This usually had little impact, as Nintendo 64 games were cartridge based and had the ability to store saved data in the cartridge itself. This was also true because the insertion of a controller Pak was prompted at every point of save in case a Controller Pak was not already in place.

Controller Pak

Main article: Controller Pak

LodgeNet Variant

The LodgeNet N64 controller

In 1997 Lodgenet Interactive and Nintendo released a controller and game playing service for various hotels in the United States. A slightly modified N64 controller that could hook into hotel televisions (and not an actual N64) was able to act as a remote control and game controller. You could pick from a large library of N64 games (including most first-party N64 titles) and play at a rate of $6.95 for every 60 minutes. The controller and video game rental service is still available and in use at some locations.

See also

• Rumble Pak

Notes

• ^cn 1 Although similar to an analog stick in functionality, the control stick on the Nintendo 64 controller is digital in nature. Technologically, the stick is similar to a ball mouse or track ball, using a pair of wheels whose position is tracked using a combination of LEDs and photodiodes (by way of small holes around the edge of the wheels). In practice the level of precision (determined by the number of holes) provided by the stick make it functionally equivalent to a true analog stick.

External links

• N64 Joystick Repair Guide Small guide to cleaning and attempted repair of the N64 controller.