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The Retro Hour (Retro Gaming Podcast)

516: Celebrating the Best (and Worst) Video Game Controllers - The Retro Hour EP516

The Retro Hour (Retro Gaming Podcast) · January 30, 2026

Shared from search: The Con

01:09:13 - 01:09:31

But I have most of the systems I would say. Did you get any rarer joysticks and say no more obscure ones? Yes, I did. So I only had, you know, the PlayStation 2 chainsaw controller.

In Context

... Yes, I have. So I would say I have most of the important systems at home and several games for each system. But I have most of the systems I would say. Did you get any rarer joysticks and say no more obscure ones? Yes, I did. So I only had, you know, the PlayStation 2 chainsaw controller. And I only had the PlayStation 2 version of that, which is a red one. And it turned out that there is another one, which was a yellow one for the GameCube. And actually one guy sent me the controller. So I got that. And on my hunt, I discovered several other controllers which are oddities and which are rare and even expensive at times. ...

13 more quotes about The Con from this episode

01:11:51 - 01:16:23

... I mean, I just kind of picked out a few in there that I think, you know, to me are quite iconic. I mean, you know, right at the start of the book, you start with the story behind the Magnavox Odyssey 300, which had a dial control. I mean, let's chat a bit about some of the controllers. Tell us about that one, then, for people who are not familiar with it. What's the deal there? This is a console which was basically a Pong clone. So you had several games on there. I think it was five or seven games where all…

01:37:20 - 01:38:02

... I was just going for a volume two there as well at some point, fingers crossed. I mean, there are some controllers that you cover in the book that were early experiments as well. I mean, you mentioned stuff like the Power Glove, which yeah, a lot of people might regard as a novelty. But for example, in 1985, you cover the Spectra video, Quick Shot Joyball controller, and also the Z Namco Any G-Con as well. I mean, these were controllers that attempted to basically bring in new ideas that really didn't catch on.…

00:38:56 - 00:39:28

... And it's still... The concept design is still this kind of like neon Tron building, as you pointed out. ...

00:47:15 - 00:49:08

... So it's got Sega Saturn in there, so he's got the controller ports at the bottom of it in there and then he's got the outputs on the back in the original version. ...

01:09:31 - 01:10:30

... And I only had the PlayStation 2 version of that, which is a red one. And it turned out that there is another one, which was a yellow one for the GameCube. And actually one guy sent me the controller. So I got that. And on my hunt, I discovered several other controllers which are oddities and which are rare and even expensive at times. That's the thing when you get in these controllers. I mean, how difficult was it to kind of find out? I mean, the book is, as I mentioned, gorgeous photography in there as well. ...

01:00:58 - 01:01:29

was playing international soccer on my Commodore 64 and having extraordinary matches against friends and against my brother and almost quitting, almost rage quitting and throwing the controller against the TV. And of course, that controller was the original Commodore controller, the original Commodore joystick, which came with the computer at least here in Germany, it did. ...

01:30:51 - 01:31:22

... So maybe your foot hurts a bit, just like if you tread on Lego in the middle of the night. But the controller does not break. And I think that was important for parents. ...

01:06:21 - 01:06:53

... How do you think emotions connect to controllers and ones of certain time periods? My emotions definitely connect with the controller. So it's not just about the games because you can play such you can play the retro games on an emulator, which is no problem nowadays. ...

00:12:00 - 00:12:32

So originally you had to have DRM locked purchases, but what this mod does, it basically removes that DRM chip, allowing the emulator to mount and run any PlayStation 2 ISO disk image files, and the console thinks they're official digital purchases, which means it's a lot more compatible than the OGL brakes. ...

00:41:52 - 00:42:26

... Yeah. I like the concept drawings because it's all middle-aged blokes. It's got a woman in there. ...

01:19:06 - 01:19:39

... And of course, you had them with arcades as well on that history of legacy. But consoles with the control pad seem to be a lot more popular. And now, obviously, they're dominant apart from the occasional arcade stick. ...

01:42:50 - 01:43:26

I was wondering, like certain controllers, we've seen a revival of classic pad stuff getting re-released at the moment and certain games like Super Smash Bros, of course, is one that people can only kind of play with GameCube controllers, especially competitive and stuff like that. Do you think there's certain eras in games that just stick with the controller and then suddenly a mark gets created for this? In my research, I fell into a kind of rabbit hole. So the rabbit hole was competitive esports, especially…

01:39:34 - 01:40:19

Yeah, right. So unfortunately, I was a bit too early for the modern controllers, like Xbox, I think, has an adaptive controller, and I think there's one from PlayStation or Sony as well. So I was a bit too early to include, or the controllers were too late to be included in the book, unfortunately. But I have a friend, who has a friend again, who has lost an arm in a car accident, and he loves playing on the SNES. And he bought some one-handed controllers, which are also featured in the book. And funnily enough,…

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