Fear the Mad Catz - The Worst Video Game Controllers Ever (Ad Free)
Added 2024-04-29 17:15:01 +0000 UTCJoin us on the maddening odyssey of the most cruel controllers ever devised, ad free exclusively for Patrons!
Comments
I was looking forward to hear more about their mice.
Picblick
2024-04-29 21:44:08 +0000 UTCYour history of controllers has problems. It's a little frustrating, because it's easy to research some of these things and it doesn't change the point of the video. You put the hard work in on the hardware, you need to work on challenging your assumptions. As it is, it's based on what someone might guess if they didn't know what happened before Gen 5 systems. Most importantly, you have the "Why" wrong of Mad Catz. First, controller bundling. You suggest this started with gen 5 systems. Clearly, it's the gen 4 systems in North America. The NES was almost always bundled with two (or four) controllers, although the top loader only had one. Similarly, nearly every Sega Base System or Master System bundle had 2 controllers except the Master System 2. But the SNES only had two controllers in the original launch bundle. Every later SNES bundle I can find had only 1 controller, even the Killer Instinct bundle and the "Competition Set". The Genesis in North America almost never had 2 controllers. This was only the case in one early "Value Pack" with Altered Beast. So it is correct to say that most 3rd gen players did not need a second controller and the market was based on differentiation. But it's not so clear in the 4th gen when players needed them, since first party controllers were a better option. Players knew 3rd party controller have almost always been crap. I used many 3rd party controllers for the NES and nearly every one I used was bad. QuickShot, for example, felt like Mad Catz before Mad Catz. The Quickshot Chimera is not a controller seen in real life often, but they had that were common. I believe the most common Quickshot controller is a QS-112. It was marketed to play with Top Gun, and if you wanted to be worse at Top Gun but feel like a pilot you could use it! Every single other controller I used from QuickShot was worse. Or how about the TurboTouch 360! Triax sent me two of these free because I clicked a box on a reply card in the magazine. For the most part, these controllers were unusable. Or Acclaim's Wireless Remote Controller? One of few NES pads that looked like a NES pad, but it felt bad and the wireless was a great way to have a button press fail. Turbo was a 1980's idea, and a first party idea although it was common in 3rd party controllers. The Nintendo-released NES Advantage from 1987 had excessively detailed turbo features, as did the later NES Max. In the 1980's it mattered, as games like Track and Field needed fast presses and shooters required multiple pressed. As the 1990's started, games had used built-in autofire or required alternating buttons to make auto-fire obsolete. Players still avoided most of the 3rd party controllers because the first party were a good deal. That changed as the 4th gen rolled into the 5th gen. First party controller prices increased significantly and there was not just a market for "controllers" but "cheap controllers". That's why these controllers appeared. Not the features. The turbo was just there to make you feel like you weren't getting a lesser product. The other features were not great. The real reason people bought Mad Catz (and the other companies) was to save money.
Kyle Olson
2024-04-29 18:52:59 +0000 UTCHow dare you make me feel old by saying I might not know what mad catz is.
Ben
2024-04-29 17:54:03 +0000 UTC
