Dear Nintendo: What the Hell?

Most people know that I am an unashamed Nintendo fanboy. It was a love affair which, like for many, started back in the days of the NES. While I did not have the console until the days of the SNES I still adored playing the Nintendo PlayChoice-10 at my local Price Chopper back when every store needed to have a video game and I always had to be pried away from the NES at Sears.

For some reason this love affair never really stopped. Perhaps it was the nostalgia for the characters of Mario, Luigi, Link and Zelda et. all which had me rooting for the SNES above the Genesis even though I did appreciate Sonic for what he was. I stuck it out through the grim N64 years yet eventually strayed away from Nintendo when I bought a used Dreamcast which is the only non-Nintendo console for which I held the same level of acclaim. I eventually came back buying my first new console, an Indigo Gamecube.

The Gamecube was and still is a crown jewel in terms of Nintendo innovation and game design. While the Wii captures in casual gamers to play Wii Sports and reaching a mass appeal not seen really since the days of the Atari 2600 I feel the Gamecube really personified why many of us stuck with the big N when others were switching to Sony or Microsoft.

Of course this is all sentimental prologue to the topic at hand which is the Gamecube controller. I love this controller. While the NES, SNES, Genesis and Saturn (non dinner plate version) are all fine controllers the Gamecube really was the best. I never really loved the Dual Shock but I appreciate that it is functional while the X-Box controllers just sucked. If the Cube had anything going for it, it was the fact that they had the best controller on the market. So naturally I was delighted when Nintendo said of Smash Brothers on the Wii that we should not throw out our Gamecube controllers just yet.

I ended up having three Cube controllers during the console's regular lifespan. Multi-player never seemed to top three at a time for me and rarely above two. I am relatively careful with my video game controllers so they lasted me well for the life of the system. I figured that when the time came I'd simply have to buy maybe one or two new controllers from Nintendo and have enough for a four player Smash Bros. Brawl match and then some.

Of course, what happens? Well everything, really. My indigo controller develops an unresponsive analog stick, the black one gets its cable nicked and repaired with electrical tape and the orange one ended up having a twisted up cable due to the cables being improperly wound by my sisters. While the latter two aren't a huge deal, I was at least down a controller, at least for games where tight analog control is needed.

So, about a month before Christmas off I went to the store in search of a new Gamecube controller. I figured since I had a Wii I may as well get a Wavebird to keep with the wireless setup I had going in the living room. To my surprise while Wal*Mart, Target and Gamestop all had Gamecube related items in stock with the former stocking new consoles and the latter stocking used there were no Wavebirds or even new Nintendo brand controllers in sight. Figuring it was just a holiday stocking issue I took my ventures online only to find that not only was the Wavebird canceled but Nintendo decided to cut production of Gamecube Controllers down to just one color, Platinum.

What discourages me is the fact that Nintendo decided to require Gamecube controllers for Gamecube games on the Wii and offer support it for Virtual Console games as well as many new Wii games such as Mario Kart Wii and Smash Bros and they pull something like this. So I decided that I may as well give a third party controller a shot. My first choice was Gamestop branded Mad Catz wireless Micro controller which I found to be more than adequate for most games. Of course, after one day I was back to Gamestop exchanging it for a working one. I ended up with one that worked and after buying my second one the first one (the exchanged one) ended up dying on me as well.

So I figured, what the heck, I'll get a Nintendo branded one. Well after firing up my search engine and checking eBay I found that there are many Chinese made controllers from unknown companies with controllers that look exactly the same as the Nintendo ones for $10! Granted they are probably made by eight year olds and may crap out on me long before the Gamecube does, I'm sold for now.

Plus upon opening them up I see they are pretty darn close to the originals as spare parts. Looks like that Spice controller may get a new cord sooner than later. Also, as luck would have it, I found a fully functional used Wavebird with an analog stick (just the rubber part) in need of replacement and 10 minutes with a screwdriver and a $10 Chinese pad and it's good as new. Now I just gotta see if I can transfer the cords as easily. That might require some soldering.

One other note, upon opening them up I noticed they had PCB points for Turbo and Slow functions so these may be the same boards as another style of Third party pad. Perhaps one day I will probe into these functions more.

So I'll see how these go for now. I do plan on buying a Platinum Gamecube controller one of these days but I also have that plan of doing a fully modded Cube with a region switch and a custom color scheme so a couple Chinese controllers might just be what I'm looking for for now.