Dreamcast Peripherals Story: Dreamcast Controller Part 2
Yesterday, while checking some old Japanese magazines, I come across the Dreamcast Magazine vol.9 from 1999. In the magazine, starting page 166, is an article titled Dreamcast Peripherals Story: Vol. 2 Dreamcast Controller where several Dreamcast controller prototypes are shown.
I believe this article is very interesting because it shows how complicated and turbulent has been for SEGA the choose of the console controller.
In the late 90s the SEGA Saturn was not selling well: the Playstation was dominating the videogame market and the Nintendo 64, despite the low sales, had a better graphic than the SEGA Saturn. Sega developed the next generation console, the Dreamcast, with the hope of regaining the lost market share. The SEGA Dreamcast was released in Japan on November 27 th , 1998 and in Europe and North America in 1999.
The Dreamcast controller was the most advanced controller of the time. It had an analog stick and two slots where it was possible to plug a visual memory unit and a vibration pack .
In the next scans we can see some early prototypes o the controller. The one on the top left is very similar to the 3D Control Pad for the Saturn that debuts with NiGHTS into Dreams.
Here we can see that early prototypes have six buttons, an analog stick and an eight-direcional D-Pad while. Later prototypes have for buttons on the front and 2 Triggers (L + R) on the back side.
On page 168 we can see a controller similar to the one that was used several years later by Nintendo in the Wii console.
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