If you are a hardened follower of Super Smash Bros., the fighting game specific to Nintendo consoles, or if you have had the opportunity to face one, you have inevitably already seen it: a controller with atypical shapes and colored buttons, designed in the early 2000s and which continues to be the tool of choice for some die-hard players.
Twenty years after the release of the controller, new models are still being marketed in small quantities for the Nintendo Switch. This durability is unprecedented in a sector where each controller remains associated with the life of its console and is then intended for the “Retrogaming”. Back on a story full of twists and turns.
A consumer controller
At the end of the 1990s, when the development of Nintendo’s new console, the “Project Dolphin”, which would become the GameCube, began, the adoption of its controller was a crucial issue. Indeed, the manufacturer had been marked by the negative feedback on the unusual shape of the three-handle controller of the Nintendo 64 (1996).
For Nicolas Nova, co-author of Joypads! The design of the controllers (Electric sheep, 2013) and anthropologist of digital cultures at the Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design, in Geneva, the public reception of this trident was experienced by Nintendo designers as a ” failure “ or, in any case, like ” a problem “.
“ They perceived that it was not an easy controller to approach because you have two hands – and that there are three handles to grip. There was a desire to rethink forms. “
In 2000, Shigeru Miyamoto, creator of the character of Mario and director of Nintendo’s game development division, confided that the GameCube controller was the one on which “He had worked the most”. He also ensured that it could be used “By the whole family”.
The team wants to learn from the Nintendo 64 controller to improve the accessibility of that of the future GameCube: it will be smaller – the previous one having been deemed too fat by the Japanese public – and will offer an innovative layout of the buttons. This concern for accessibility, “That’s why the GameCube controller has a big button: so the player knows where to press first”, reported in 2006 the former president of Nintendo, Satoru Iwata.
This main button is topped with two bean-shaped buttons. This proposal – which however had no posterity – is its main originality. With its two handles and two joysticks, it rather conforms to the model of Nintendo’s direct competitors, the Sony Playstation (whose iconic “DualShock” controller was marketed from 1997) then Microsoft’s Xbox (November 2001 ), designed for evolution in three-dimensional games.
Questioning
However, if Nintendo originally wanted to create a controller for the general public, the company ended up with a controller that rather appealed to experienced players.
“At the time, we were still in an inflation of buttons and the quantity of actions to be mastered. Afterwards, they realized that there were too many buttons and that it was a controller built for them. gamers Nintendo “, explains Nicolas Nova. One of the people responsible for the design of the GameCube and the Wii, Kenishiro Ashida, explained that she was “The sum of all the levers that preceded it” and therefore a synthesis of eighteen years of know-how on the question.
However, this complexity was then questioned by the Japanese company because of the low sales of the GameCube. Indeed, with just under 22 million copies sold, at the time, it was the lowest-selling Nintendo-branded home console.
After the success of the Wii (2006), Shigeru Miyamoto even retrospectively made his self-criticism. In an interview given in 2008, he considered her to be one of the “Disappointments” of her career. “The GameCube controller is the result of our feeling that if we didn’t add certain things, gamers wouldn’t be able to play our games. Then we realized it was a problem ”, he judged.
Attachment to its ergonomics
Twenty years after its release, Nicolas Nova considers with a touch of nostalgia that this object marks the end of an era: “In the 1990s, it was a time of explosion of creativity in peripherals. There was a lot of experimentation with the styles of controllers. “ He cites the profusion of buttons on Atari’s Jaguar (1993), the Nintendo 64 trident (1996) or even the small screen of Sega’s Dreamcast (1998). “The GameCube are the last colors of the 1990s before a sleeker aesthetic and standardization of the controllers on the two-handle model”, he analyzes.
However, a fraction of the GameCube players have remained loyal to him. After the interest aroused by Super Smash Bros. Melee (2001), one of the first games intended for Nintendo’s “cube”, the series has been rolled out three times, on each of the manufacturer’s three home consoles, with, each time, the possibility of connecting (sometimes with an adapter) a GameCube controller on the new machine.
Today, getting a new GameCube controller isn’t easy
The Bronol youtuber, series specialist Super Smash Bros., thus confirms its attachment, over the years, to its ergonomics. “I think a lot of players – including myself – use it mainly because we are used to it and we play Smash with since 2001-2002 “, he considers.
He also remains very attached to his first controller. “Since I now know how to open and maintain it, it is with the shell of the latter that I play in competition today”, while specifying that the components are those of a new controller purchased in 2018.
But Bronol points out that getting a new GameCube controller today isn’t easy. He deplores the weakness of stocks. Results : “Prices often exceed 100 euros. ” He also judges that the quality of new products is random: “There is a side lottery “, he believes, because some new models seem less responsive than others to perform advanced techniques.
Once a fixture on the competitive scene of Super Smash Bros., the GameCube controller is now in competition with the latest version of the game. ” I often see new Ultimate players [le dernier Super Smash Bros. en date] say they hate her and prefer her “pro controller” of the Switch “, Says Bronol, referring to the Switch Pro Controller, sold since 2017 and with a more classic design.
Other players also come to tournaments with “arcade pads”, large flat controllers, equipped with a joystick and large buttons comparable to those of the arcades of yesteryear, and acclaimed by combat game players. . GameCube’s controller has resisted, but evolution may be inevitable: after all, younger players, like the Mexican MkLeo, one of the best players in Great Smash Bros. Ultimate in the world, are the same age as the GameCube.
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