The three-prong layout was certainly an idea someone had. Having an analog stick on a console controller was innovative at the time, but the implementation of putting it on its own grip so you had to choose between it and the D-pad didn’t go so well. There were games that used the D-pad, but most titles published for the system were the newfangled 3D games that were best played with the newfangled analog stick, so in practice most players held the right-hand 2/3rds of their controllers. There were a lot of games where having occasional access to the D pad would have been nice; imagine Majora’s Mask with the transformation masks and ocarina bound permanently to the D-pad so you wouldn’t have to keep menuing to replace C-button items, especially late in the game.
Sony very quickly studied what was right and what was wrong with Nintendo’s approach and they created the Dualshock, which was almost entirely perfect.
The three-prong layout was certainly an idea someone had. Having an analog stick on a console controller was innovative at the time, but the implementation of putting it on its own grip so you had to choose between it and the D-pad didn’t go so well. There were games that used the D-pad, but most titles published for the system were the newfangled 3D games that were best played with the newfangled analog stick, so in practice most players held the right-hand 2/3rds of their controllers. There were a lot of games where having occasional access to the D pad would have been nice; imagine Majora’s Mask with the transformation masks and ocarina bound permanently to the D-pad so you wouldn’t have to keep menuing to replace C-button items, especially late in the game.
Sony very quickly studied what was right and what was wrong with Nintendo’s approach and they created the Dualshock, which was almost entirely perfect.