"Nintendo makes consoles only for Nintendo games" Myth or fact?

[TheMisterManGuy]

Jumpin said:

TheMisterManGuy said:

It depends. The N64, GameCube, and Wii all had weird, non-standardized button/control layouts which were great for some games, but not so great for others. Meanwhile, even with the Switch's Joy-Con controllers, you still get a pretty standard controller setup out of the box. So Nintendo systems generally have the best third party support when they balance innovative controller features, with conventional norms.

I'd take what you said a bit further. The NES and SNES weren't standard controllers either - there was nothing like them before they launched, at least not in the mainstream. I'd also say the Switch was a unique controller design that advanced on the Wii concept, it just combined the classic controller into the joy cons with an attachment. But, I do agree that Nintendo has been (since at least the Wii) trying to make their controllers backward compatible for their entire libraries.

The Gamecube is probably the only controller that doesn't really work for the previous generations (try playing NES or, even worse, SNES games with it on Wii VC).

There wasn't really an common controller design back then. So it was kind of the wild west of companies trying to see what works. By the 6th generation, controllers started to have a more common standard (two clickable sticks, d-pad, four face buttons in a diamond layout, four shoulder buttons) and Nintendo not having the same standard on its controller (GCN's odd face button shapes, tiny c-stick, non-clickable sticks, and lack of an extra shoulder buttons) made it harder for many games to be playable on it.