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.

Going HD

About a month ago I received my first paycheck at my new job. As it was considerably better than my old low paying job playing with silverware I decided it was time to cash in some savings and pick up the item that I have been saving for all summer: a new TV.

My last set (a 27" Panasonic CRT ) I picked up back in the fall of 2001. I still remember going to the store not long after 9/11 doing what I believed was my part to keep the economy going after a horrendous act of terror. It wasn't much but since I was unfit for military duty, I was at least helping to avoid a financial panic.

I paid around $330 for that set at Sears and I couldn't have been happier. At the time I bought it, I had the largest set in the house and mostly used it for watching DVDs and playing Dreamcast games. After six years of serving this function rather well, plus the addition of a Gamecube, an NES, a laserdisc player and other devices it racked up many hours of use as my DVD Blog can attest.

A few months ago while playing Punch Out, I noticed that the screen started to have a large red spot in the upper left hand corner. My guess was that it came from a magnet near by in the form of some really awful small speakers I used for rear surrounds once upon a time. Now to repair this is to simply use a degausser to demagnetize the area. Of course that would require removing the TV to another location as this can inadvertently erase anything from a VHS tape to a hard drive. Seeing as how I didn't want any data lost I lived with it and toyed with the idea of going HD, although I was still at my old job I could not afford it.

Fast forward to the end of August and I had just accepted a new position at a new job which paid a decent and regular salary. I decided the time was right to use some of the emergency money I had saved this summer. Since I was happily employed, I went out and got my new TV.

First thing I had to decide was on the size. As my bedroom isn't that large I decided to go with a 32" widescreen. This allows for a wider set than my current 27 but for a somewhat shorter picture. At first I felt it might be a bit small but I am quite pleased with it. Going with this size made it easy to immediately pick LCD over plasma although had I opted for a larger set, I believe I would have gone the same way.

My new TV is the 32" Panasonic TCLX70 which was on sale at CircuitCity.com for a fairly reasonable price and I decided to go ahead and take the plunge. So with the new in and the old on its way out, the question now turned to my aging TV stand and piles of electronics.

The old TV stand was something of an enigma. I purchased it back in 2000 for around $20 at the closing of our local Bradlees store to free up the coffee table my really old TV was occupying at the time. While this rickety piece of particle board could certainly hold my new TV's weight it just was a huge eyesore and lacked any reasonable method or storing components.

I first went searching for a stand as soon as I had decided on the television. I poked around the usual places of Best Buy, BJ's, Target et. all and seemed to find a very common trend of cheap materials for a high price. While I loved the glass shelf look of many fine stands, I just could not bring myself to pay the ridiculously high price of a stand. I may spend $150 on a DVD player or a short stack of video games, but I'd be dammed if I had spent that on some particle board.

Being the sort of creative fellow I am, I decided instead of spending all sorts of money on a stand, I'd just build one. I mean, how hard could it be, right? Well not completely out of my reach but a heck of a lot more work than I wanted. After measuring and drawing up plans and calculating the cost for everything the price still seemed too high. I was starting to believe I'd just have to cough up the money for a good stand or stick with my Bradlees special.

Instead I got a creative idea on my lunch break at work. While browsing WalMart.com I came across a black TV cart for around $18. While it wouldn't fit my TV, I thought that two adjacent to each other might just do the trick. So a few hours and less than $40 later and I had two cheap shelves together and waiting for the new TV.

Once that was done I had to plug in and charge my trusty electric screwdriver and get ready to put it all together. After an hour or so that evening, I had the new stands together and the next day when the TV arrived I got it all set up. Currently the shelves are home to a DVD player, VCR, Cable Box, an NES, an SNES, a Genesis and Dreamcast. I may add in my PS2 at some point as well but for now this is just fine.

I'll have to post photos some time when I get the rest of the room clean but I am more than satisfied with it.