In general, I've liked their controllers better than just about anybody else's over the decades.
NES was classic, perfect. SNES took that and made it even better. N64 was weird, but the setup worked perfectly for certain types of games. GC was nice, except I always hated the hard-to-press L and R buttons. Wiimote/Nunchuck was fine, I liked the games that let you play the Wiimote NES-style. The IR pointing was brilliant for menus and games where you aim and shoot. The Classic Controller/Pro were very nice.
And I really love the GamePad. I've said it many times, but it really does feel like the "Swiss Army Knife" of video games controllers, it has everything, 8 buttons, nice dpad, dual analog, huge screen/touchscreen, 8axis/whatever motion sensing, NFC reader ability, universal remote ability, you name it. I think it's a brilliant design, one of the best game controllers ever made, personally.
As for others, obviously the Master System and Turbo Graphix 16 controllers were great, basically just NES controllers. The Genesis controller was okay, but I never cared for that dpad style. The Dreamcast controller was good, but could have been a little smaller for what it was. I have never cared for Xbox controllers in general, just don't like the design, buttons, dpad, you name it. Playstation controller has always been great, EXCEPT that I have always hated that disjointed dpad design. It's perfectly fine for everything BUT fighting games. Constantly doing dpad move imputs with that thing can be murder on the thumbs. I had a friend who literally got blisters from doing that in an extended game session.
But yes, all around, Nintendo has always been known for (usually) great controllers.
P.S. How the hell can anyone say that the NES controller "sucked"? It literally innovated the notion of of the dpad, two buttons, start AND select buttons. It was simple but elegent. It had everything it needed for that era. I always loved my Hudson Soft brand Joycard controllers for NES a little better, because they were rounded and had rapid-fire switches. But the basic NES controller design was perfect for 2D gaming, and was something everyone else copied from there on out. I just fail to see how that "sucks".
