@jd: I'm impressed you knew that. Most people don't.

I knew N64's was digital, but I didn't know it had no dead zone issues. You managed to teach me something!

The irony is Nintendo did not have an analog stick until the GameCube. The N64 stick is basicly an inverted ball mouse using light pulses to determine degree of movment. In otherwords it is digital. Analog sticks use voltage to determine degree of movment. I prefer the N64 style as it does not result in drift when you tap the stick like the PS1/2/3, DC (the biggest offender), GC, Wii, Xbox, and Xbox 360 (all true analog) sticks do. Many of these controllers will register movment even if you dont touch the sticks.

Yes many consoles and computers from the 1970's and early 1980's had true analog sticks. But if we are refering to the modern videogame era (NES and on) it was defintily SEGA first.

The first version didn't work too well, but then Sony blocked it and I had to get the second version which actually works quite well.

great post thanks

Anyone tried the FragFX controller?

there is another analog stick that predates the N64 and probably came about the same time as the Sony twin stick - the Sega Saturn Mission Stick. it is compatible with Panzer Dragoon, which is a Saturn launch game… the Mission Stick also has an analog toggel thumb wheel - one example of it's use is in After Burner for throttle control and in Out Run to control the accelration and breaking…

except for the wii, systems were never designed for their controllers, they were designed to accept data and the controller was designed to give it

and again thats wrong since the vectrexs default controller had an analog thumbstick so even going by your definition nintendo wasnt the first

vectrex was fully analog, not 8 way
actually the list of dualshock1 games is pretty long
almost every game after its release and some from before support it

and as i said, dual shock is compatible with the flight stick
the flight sticks works as a dual shock for dual shock games!

i am the controller expert, if you are going to try to dispute me it helps not to try to ignore the facts ive already given in the article

There were dozens of analog joysticks in the 70s/80s. I had one for my Apple II.

The idea isn't that Nintendo had the first ever analog stick, its that Nintendo had the first system designed for an analog stick. Previous analog sticks were simply used at elaborate 8 way joysticks. Most games for the N64 were designed around the use of analog.

The PlayStation analog sticks, while technically first, were all but useless back in those days. Check out the list of games that used the stick. It's pretty short, and the games weren't that good. The better games were released about a year after the stick. Not only that, but the Dual Shock is not compatible with it, for some reason, so those games are ONLY playable with the obscure analog stick (or the intial pre-dual shock "analog controller").

But Vectrex and Atari beat Nintendo

Not really a Nintendo fanboy myself. But Nintendo did beat Sony to the Analog gamepad :)

Interesting article Neotechni I didn't know the flight stick was so early.