Small differences…

I’m not a huge video game player. On average, I get a machine once per console generation, usually whatever Nintendo’s offering is, and usually about 3 years later, when the system is on the decline and I can catch up on the essential titles at $20 used prices. I was planning on skipping the Wii U, honestly, if it wasn’t for a totally surprising, incredibly generous Christmas gift from a future brother-in-law.

Bundled with it was the latest Mario Kart, which is a very worthy addition to that series, but it has that Mario Kart way of instinctively making you spend a lot of minutes pressing really hard on the accelerator button, even while a light consistent contact will work exactly the same.

So when, after the first few days of nightly Kart sessions, a weird pain manifests itself in the pad of my right thumb, I start to think a little more about the differences between the old controllers and the new.

And I think I found the culprit. Looking at the right sides of the new Wii U Pro controller in profile alongside that of the old Gamecube controller of two generations ago (the Wii Remote is such a radical departure in controller design from what came before and after that we’ll leave it alone for now), you can see that while both controllers have an inset intended for the middle, ring, and pinky to wrap around (and optionally the index, for software that doesn’t make much use of the triggers), the one on the new, black controller is much more deeply carved.

The Wii U pad is carved in such a way as to create a reduced circumference of the right handle.This forces you into a certain way of holding it, at the risk of having it feel like you’re constantly about to drop it. Because your grip is proscribed by that quirk of the shape, there are very few ways to hold it that let you press the buttons without lifting your thumb up high in order to bend it down hard upon the button.

The Cube controller is operable with a much more gentle thumb bend or none at all, and all buttons, including the yellow analog stick, are accessible with a gentler lateral motion of an unbent thumb.

The Gamecube controller has other charms. I may speak about them in future entries, but it’s the bulbousness of its handles that makes it kinder to my right thumb, and easier to hold whatever myriad ways that work for each individual hand. So, I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself putting down $20 on the adapter that makes this grungy old piece of hardware from 15 years ago play nicely with the software of today.