The N64 controller was shown in game magazines BEFORE the Saturn analog controller, Sega copied the idea of an analog stick and shoved it into NiGHTS hoping to one up Nintendo, but you could play NiGHTS with the standard d-pad too whereas Mario 64 was entirely designed around the analog stick. 
Nintendo took so long to release the N64 that Sega was able to quickly just copy the controller.
And yes, things like that are why Nintendo is such an anal retentive prudes about showing anything new ever since then, the secrecy is always off the charts. It traces back primarily to the N64 controller being ripped off left and right IMO.
The N64 controller is really for all its faults the first real "modern" mainstream game controller. All the other controllers of that time were just basically Super NES or Genesis knock-off variations (Playstation 1 and Sega Saturn included).
Nintendo is the first of the three companies to sit down and really say "hey 3D games needs a different kind of controller, you can't just reuse the SNES pad" and they more or less set the frame work for everything it needed (analog control for character movement + dedicated control aspect for camera control in the C-buttons + early variant of the trigger button concept and then added the rumble aspect as well). These are basically the fundamentals of every modern controller basically since then. Other companies including Sony and Nintendo and Microsoft would evolve the design elements introduced in the N64 pad, but the N64 pad is definitely the beginning of controllers being made for 3D games, not just a SNES pad slapped together to kinda half assed play 3D games.
The Super NES is the perfect controller for 2D games, the N64 even with its flaws set the core fundamentals for what a 3D controller needs when the other primary companies (Panasonic/3DO, Atari, Sony, Sega) were kind of clueless about that.
Last edited by Soundwave - 17 hours ago
