10 Worst Mass-Market Video Game Controllers Of All Time

Seriously, WTF was that N64 pad?!

By Scott Tailford /

Nintendo

It's very easy to get caught up discussing software over hardware when it comes to comparing consoles and looking over gaming history, but what of the hardware that got us here in the first place?

Advertisement

Nintendo, for example, are making a huge deal of how the new Switch is a hybridisation of every single controller they've made to date, combining the SNES's analogue buttons, the N64's analogue sticks, the Wii's motion controls, the Wii U Gamepad's touch screen, etc.

However, whilst Nintendo certainly gave us some incredibly innovative components that the industry would take and run with, both they and many other manufacturers are guilty of throwing out some duds too.

Advertisement

Now, it's not to say the following controllers didn't have any worth - many became childhood favourites in spite of shortcomings that even their respective companies would drop going forward - but there is a special place carved out in gaming history for the pads that never sat right with the vast majority.

Lastly, it's certainly true that most terrible game controllers come from third-party iterations or developer-licensed promotional one-offs (the Resident Evil 'Chainsaw Controller', anyone?), but that doesn't mean the official iterations that got the widest circulation weren't almost ruined by their own crippling oversights.

Advertisement