[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Quickshot Joysticks
December 3rd, 2012 by Benj Edwards
INSIST ON QUICKSHOT! THE GENUINE PIECE!!!
I own a few QuickShot joysticks, but I don’t believe I’ve used any of these particular models. Third-party console controllers weren’t all that popular in the age of the NES (relative to the 2600 days, at least), likely because the NES’s own pads (and the NES Advantage and Max) were so good to begin with. Same with the Genesis and Super NES. That fact alone probably killed a few third party video game peripheral companies that were hanging on from the Atari 2600 era, although the QuickShot brand lived on until the late 1990s.
Discussion Topic of the Week: Did/do you commonly use third-party controllers for your classic video game systems? Which one is your favorite?
December 3rd, 2012 at 1:17 pm
I prefer the Mad Katz High Frequency 6-button Sega Genesis controller to the 1st-party controller. It was more comfortable in marathon sessions, and the turbo settings were a godsend for button-masher events. Sadly the slow-motion settings barely worked, most of the time the game just repeatedly paused and unpaused. It worked just fine on Disney’s Aladdin and Lion King though, which made for a trippy, challenging game.
Imagine my surprise when Mad Katz accessories for more modern systems like the PS2, Wii, 360 were total pieces of crap. I felt my childhood betrayed me.
http://segaretro.org/File:HighFrequency6button.jpg
December 4th, 2012 at 12:11 am
One of my favorites is the Tron style 2600 joystick. I think the cord wrapped up into the base and had some suction cups on the bottom, but it’s style in the shape of the Tron arcade game was the best part.
My favorite for actual gameplay was probably the gigantor ‘wireless’ 2600 controllers, with the big antenna and its massive base.
December 4th, 2012 at 6:50 am
I used the Wicco bat-stick and three-way on my atari 800xl. The Wicco sticks were well made and would take heavy use.
December 4th, 2012 at 9:13 am
I’d always had the impression that 3rd-party controllers had their heyday in the 3rd & 4th video game generations and declined afterwards with the exception of arcade-style fighter sticks. Turbo was practically a requirement in those days, between shooting games that only fired one bullet at a time and games like Final Fantasy where you had to buy items one at a time and had to press A three times to get a potion.
December 10th, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Without being sure which era you actually mean*, I know they were very popular during the NES and SNES/Genesis era. And they were prevalent for most of the PS1 era. It was fairly late in the Playstation’s life when the 3rd-party controller market dried up.
Sadly, I can’t speak personally to the pre-crash controller market. I was just too young to remember.
*If you’re using Wikipedia’s list of video game generations, STOP. It’s a terrible list of nonsense that files the same hardware in multiple generations in some places, while rolling multiple generations of hardware together in others.
They APPEAR to be trying to make the generations apply to rough blocks of years, but then they can’t get over their Nintendo fetish so they extend one generation to let Nintendo get in on it, and they extend another generation to let them insert cosmetic redesigns into the list. And then don’t recognize that a third generation should be shortened due to the incredibly rapid pace of technology improvement at the time.
Basically, it’s written from a very modern perspective and assumes major system launches come in lockstep so you can easily identify a new generation by the single solid breakover point. Which just isn’t true until very recently.
And while it’s not a problem with accuracy, per se, the inconsistent padding of the list with hardware revisions in some, but not all, instances drives me crazy almost as badly.
As for why the Atari Flashbacks are the only plug&play systems eligible for admission into the list, I’ll never know.
December 10th, 2012 at 8:58 pm
Jaybee,
I do not use and have never recognized the validity of Wikipedia’s video game generation categorization system. It is the worst kind of arbitrary tripe.
I briefly considered trying to fix it while Wikipedia was still young, but I wasn’t up for the challenge at the time. Trying to change that system would be 1000 times more difficult now that it has become entrenched. As a result, it has improperly educated a whole new new generation of video game fans who will reinforce it as a standard convention, however erroneously.
—
Regarding third-party controllers — sure, they weren’t exactly rare n the NES, SNES, and PS1 days. But they were much, much more commonly used in the Atari 2600 days in comparison (for reasons I speculated upon in the post).
December 17th, 2012 at 8:52 am
Oh. That was actually supposed to be directed at the comment above me, which made explicit reference to the “3rd & 4th” generation … did I really write a big four-paragraph rant on a tangential comment? Some day I’ll learn to just step away from the keyboard.
February 8th, 2013 at 8:44 am
Benj! There’s the sidewinder controller I have! The bottom right! I remember YEARS ago I asked you guys on the forums. Well there it is!
August 13th, 2015 at 7:17 am
Benj Edwards Says: “Trying to change that system would be 1000 times more difficult now that it has become entrenched. As a result, it has improperly educated a whole new new generation of video game fans who will reinforce it as a standard convention, however erroneously.”
That can be extrapolated and applied to Wikipedia as a whole. Peer-approved sources of information will never be equal to scholar-approved.
July 15th, 2017 at 12:20 pm
Missing here is the Aviator, which was a treasure to unwrap. It’s a pity it wasn’t very useful for driving games, which is what I had hoped to do with it. Besides that, I had the Python and the Maverick. Loved em!