Top Games Ranking - 10 Rare & Valuable Video Game Controllers You Might Own
In this day and age, a special edition controller largely means very little. They might be a different color or maybe have a game's logo slapped onto the plastic somewhere, but they're functionally standardized. Several wild and wacky limited releases from days gone by that were hard to locate then are practically impossible to locate now, but if you somehow have one of these in your collection, then rejoice.
You have a piece of gaming history, from strange shapes to bizarre button layouts. The gamepads on this list all tried something different. I'm sorry for oneculture. com, and these are 10 rare and valuable article game controllers you might own. Number 10 wutang shaolin style pad now and then. In article game history, celebrities have tried their hand at expanding the value of their brand by looking at interactive entertainment.
Actors, sports stars, and musicians have all crossed the Rubicon into the world of article games. One of the 90s most successful rap groups, T.I., tried their own attempt with the PS1 fighting game Shaolin Style. Reviews of the title ranged from middling to pretty positive, especially as it did its best to celebrate the musician's identity in its soundtrack and, of course, in its specialist controller.
The Wu-Tang Shaolin Style Controller has one of the most unique silhouettes for a gamepad you'll ever see. Many musicians have put their likenesses into article game software; you can say they've done the same for hardware. However, with the game's launch in 1999, the controller was already outdated.
Its lack of sticks and vibration made it far less than the new and rather revolutionary dual shock. Also, as cool as the shape was, it wasn't exactly a comfortable piece of plastic to be holding on to. Maybe not one to particularly use. So this rare controller is more of a collector's item than the best way to play Elemental Gearbolt Assassins.
If Elemental Gearbolt is a decent but ultimately forgotten light gun shooter for PlayStation developed by Alpha Studios and published by Sony, a very special limited edition of the game was made to celebrate its release, and the word "limited" is very much inoperative with the best guess of 40 being produced.
One was awarded to the winner of a tournament held at CES in 1998, and the rest largely went to publications and journalists. The complete package was something special, housed in an aluminium case with special coloured memory cards and, of course, the reason it made it to this list, a unique controller.
The elemental gearbox gun isn't unique from a specifications point of view. In fact, it's just a regular Namco gun con of the era. However, it's the golden sheen that the whole thing has that would get Francisco Scaramanga excited. This vacuum metallized peripheral even has matching golden screws, giving it a pretty stellar look.
As only 40 were made, it makes it exceptionally rare, but considering most were sent out to publications, it's possible that every now and then a new listing will appear on eBay from the special few in the industry clearing out their collections. So if your namco gone con happens to be gold, you might be sitting on a severely rare controller, number eight nijikon.
The name of this controller comes from the Japanese word nijru, which means to twist, so that should give you an idea of this gamepad's intended purpose. Split into two, the hearts are built around a swivel so that each can be pushed and pulled forwards and backwards. The Nimiji Khan was inspired by the 1997 title Cybersled and was designed to imitate its arcade experience at home, but there's way more to it than meets the eye.
It's compatible with a large chunk of racing games on the PlayStation system, from the wacky sci-fi thrills of Wipeout to the fairly straightforward and realistic Gran Turismo. It was perhaps the most convenient way to play these kinds of titles. Before the advent of the dual shock, Nijicon pretty much invented analog control by twisting the portions.
You had infinitely more precision over your vehicle's turning compared to the standard d-pad, plus even some of the face buttons had analog control due to their length and depth, and you could choose how much gas or brake to apply. It might look like a weird toy now, but the nijicon was actually very popular at the time of its release.
Ultimately, however, when thumbsticks became the norm, this quirky little experiment got lost in time. Number 7 the Gamecube keyboard controller, the Sega Dreamcast, is largely regarded as a colossal disaster. That being said, the saving grace is that its impact on the gaming industry is perhaps even greater than its failure.
Being the first games console with internet connectivity, sega could only look at PCs for inspiration, and thus peripherals like the Dreamcast mouse and keyboard were a requirement for online surfing and gaming. When Fantasy Star Online was released on the Gamecube, hardware developer Ascii returned to Sega's keyboard idea.
The Gamecube keyboard controller is exactly what it sounds like: the two halves of a Gamecube controller bolted onto the sides of a keyboard. It's like that moment in cartoons where a character eats an entire sandwich hole and you see it move horizontally down their neck. Just pick your keyboard up in the air and imagine playing with a controller that way.
It's certainly not the most comfortable thought, and having to place it down to type a message and then pick it back up again over and over seems ultimately dreadful. On top of this, the rare few who managed to use the controller have complained that the keys were too small and typing on the thing wasn't that easy, which sort of negates its entire point.
Number six is a resident evil pad. Around the release of Resident Evil 4, Capcom put out two different colored special edition controllers for the title that were modeled on chainsaws. They were weird and wonderful, even if they were kind of awkward to use. Even the game they were designed for was a little cumbersome to play with them before that, though, around 1998.
Ascii released an official Resident Evil controller that was very specifically designed to enhance your survival horror experiences. The most important feature of the resident evil pad was reshuffling. The standard PlayStation button layout means the most important things are within immediate reach and those that you don't need, often the shoulder buttons, are kept out of the way.
Thus, rather strangely, the face buttons are square, triangle, and r1, which raises the character's weapon. Capcom were all about experimentation in the late 90s and early 2000s, so it's no big surprise they signed off on this, but whilst it's a neat piece of history, its changes are rather minimal and, therefore, it's easily forgotten.
