12 Most Useless Gaming Peripherals Ever

£100 for a pretty mech controller that only works with an obsolete game? Take my money.

Accessories for consoles have existed since gaming began.: in that time there have been a huge variety of peripherals released across all platforms from the great to the truly unnecessary. There has been an array of successful and useful products, such as the guitar controller for Guitar Hero, Xbox Kinect and racing wheels, which actually add to the gaming experience fundamentally, but on the back of their success, developers have launched peripherals that mean little on that front. Many peripherals have released for consoles that were no more than expensive ornaments. They come in many forms, from ones that seem like a good idea in concept, but miss the mark in practice to accessories that provide solutions to problems that simply don't exist. Others are just laughably misguided attempts to enhance your gaming experience, or more likely to squeeze as many dollars and pounds out of you as possible. This list counts down the most useless peripherals ever released for consoles.

12. Jogcon

The move to 3D gaming with the Nintendo 64 and the PlayStation put more pressure on an alternative to the traditional d-pad: the Nintendo 64 went with a joystick while Sony introduced analog sticks. Namco though went down a different route. To coincide with their release of Ridge Racer 4 they designed a completely new controller, which ignored the traditional analog sticks in favour of a large turning wheel in the middle of the controller. Nice idea, but it was ill-suited for a driving game as it had very little force feedback and was incredibly inaccurate. It was also only compatible with Ridge Racer 4 meaning that players would have to learn to use a different controller for one specific game.
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A sport, gaming and fiction enthusiast, I particularly enjoy Formula 1, rugby, tennis, athletics and football.