If companies weren’t ever willing to think outside the box and take risks with new products, we’d have never gotten such innovative devices like the Sony Walkman, the Nintendo Wii, or even the Apple iPod. But innovation isn’t always a good thing, and for every weird controller like the Wiimote that wins over consumers, there’s a whole drawer full of bizarre failures.
The design of a video game console’s controller is even more important than the games being offered. It’s a gamer’s primary connection to the device, and there’s a reason the design of handheld controllers and gamepads look mostly unchanged since the ‘80s. That’s not to say there isn’t room for innovation—Nintendo proved there is with its Wii—there just wasn’t room in gamers’ hearts for these truly cursed attempts to do something different.
