10th April 2024, 5:46 AM
Alright so we all know the drill here. The N64 analog stick is simultaneously incredibly sensitive and amazing, and also terribly prone to wear and tear into dusty loose trash with just a few months of use. Heck I bought a brand new unused N64 controller and it broke down within a few years, and I don't play my N64 nearly as much as I did when it was current. Even the new remake of the N64 controller for Switch basically reuses the same manufacturing process for a lot of the parts, but the plastic quality is actually lower so it'll grind down faster.
The cause of this is the plastic bowl the mechanism rests in and the plastic curved "axis bits" that slide along that bowl. This friction is the source of all the problems and could have been resolved by making that bowl out of metal, but of course at greater expense to Nintendo. There's other parts that wear down too, such as the gearlike assembly that drives the portion translating your movement into a digital signal, but that bowl is the key weakpoint. Many solutions have been engineered, from sourcing original warehouse analog sticks (a harder and harder thing to do these days, and even Nintendo's new N64 switch controllers were made in such small numbers that this hasn't replenished online aftermarket sources) to using Gamecube style analog sticks or using third party controllers like HORI's. All of these work adequately, but the N64 stick was so finely tuned (out of the box at least) that none of these quite allow the same level of finesse in games like Mario 64.
Oh and there's the hard plastic nub you rest your thumb on which seems specifically constructed to give you gamer's callous. Modern rubber tips are far superior in that respect.
Well, here's the solution:
https://steelsticks64.com/product/steals...pter-pack/
Someone's gone and decided to half-refurbish and half-reengineer old N64 sticks. A metal bowl custom cut, metal stick for greater durability (though I've never snapped a stick), and those little gear components refinished to pristine original condition. There's even options for a replacement cap for your thumb up top from a refurbished original cap to new rubberized versions that provide better and more comfortable grip. It's an amazing solution that looks like it'll go the distance and last a good long while, but there's always a cost to these things, and well, any site that hides the cost on a product page is a warning sign on what to expect. The price of a fully refurbished kit is 125 Swedish monies, which converts to 135 or so US dollars. Add in the $20 it'll take to ship to the US, we're looking at a hefty cost to fix up just ONE N64 controller. Decking out four of them? That's a pretty crazy up front price to get a few games of Smash Bros, Perfect Dark, or Mario Party in with friends without someone saying "It's not my fault, the controller's broken!".
So, what we have here is an amazing solution which I'd love to get, and which I can see myself potentially plonking down enough for ONE of these things at some point relatively soon, but I can't honestly recommend it for most that have more sense than cents and I certainly couldn't recommend it for a full four player setup. A shame, but I can't imagine it being that much cheaper considering that economies of scale simply won't apply to such a niche product.
The cause of this is the plastic bowl the mechanism rests in and the plastic curved "axis bits" that slide along that bowl. This friction is the source of all the problems and could have been resolved by making that bowl out of metal, but of course at greater expense to Nintendo. There's other parts that wear down too, such as the gearlike assembly that drives the portion translating your movement into a digital signal, but that bowl is the key weakpoint. Many solutions have been engineered, from sourcing original warehouse analog sticks (a harder and harder thing to do these days, and even Nintendo's new N64 switch controllers were made in such small numbers that this hasn't replenished online aftermarket sources) to using Gamecube style analog sticks or using third party controllers like HORI's. All of these work adequately, but the N64 stick was so finely tuned (out of the box at least) that none of these quite allow the same level of finesse in games like Mario 64.
Oh and there's the hard plastic nub you rest your thumb on which seems specifically constructed to give you gamer's callous. Modern rubber tips are far superior in that respect.
Well, here's the solution:
https://steelsticks64.com/product/steals...pter-pack/
Someone's gone and decided to half-refurbish and half-reengineer old N64 sticks. A metal bowl custom cut, metal stick for greater durability (though I've never snapped a stick), and those little gear components refinished to pristine original condition. There's even options for a replacement cap for your thumb up top from a refurbished original cap to new rubberized versions that provide better and more comfortable grip. It's an amazing solution that looks like it'll go the distance and last a good long while, but there's always a cost to these things, and well, any site that hides the cost on a product page is a warning sign on what to expect. The price of a fully refurbished kit is 125 Swedish monies, which converts to 135 or so US dollars. Add in the $20 it'll take to ship to the US, we're looking at a hefty cost to fix up just ONE N64 controller. Decking out four of them? That's a pretty crazy up front price to get a few games of Smash Bros, Perfect Dark, or Mario Party in with friends without someone saying "It's not my fault, the controller's broken!".
So, what we have here is an amazing solution which I'd love to get, and which I can see myself potentially plonking down enough for ONE of these things at some point relatively soon, but I can't honestly recommend it for most that have more sense than cents and I certainly couldn't recommend it for a full four player setup. A shame, but I can't imagine it being that much cheaper considering that economies of scale simply won't apply to such a niche product.