Like galore others, the GameCube Wavebird was the archetypal crippled controller I ever earnestly loved. Everything that came earlier it was fine; astatine champion a novelty, astatine worst an oversized pain, but mostly conscionable a means to an end. Now there’s a caller controller for the Nintendo Switch that looks precisely similar a spiritual successor to the 2002 peripheral and claims to person nary of the instrumentality drift issues the Joy-Con person go notorious for.

“The Nyxi Wizard combines the retro quality of our long-run NGC controller with a overmuch much ergonomic plan and works perfectly with immoderate Nintendo Switch console,” Nyxi precocious tweeted. The controller is connected merchantability for $70, featuring replaceable joysticks and adjustable turbo and mapping options. But the existent gully are the hallway effect joysticks that usage magnets to forestall drift.

As Chris Person points out astatine The Verge, Sega utilized this exertion for the Sega Saturn 3D and Dreamcast controllers. By utilizing parts that are little prone to wear, the sticks should past longer without succumbing to drift whereby the directional controls are engaged adjacent erstwhile the instrumentality is near successful the resting position. As idiosyncratic whose modern controllers lone look to past a mates years earlier the pin springs interruption down oregon the rubber starts to disappear, it’s an appealing proposition, and 1 8bitdo and different speciality controller manufacturers are moving connected offering.

The Joy-Con’s issues are good known astatine this point. I’ve gone done 3 pairs successful six years. There person been issues with the locking mechanisms connected the sides and fastener springs, but the drift is the astir infamous, resulting successful lawsuits, regulatory investigations, and overworked repair centers. I’d beryllium remiss if I didn’t notation that Sony’s DualShock 4 and caller PS5 DualSense haven’t worn good implicit the years either. My aged Wavebird meanwhile? Still good for a affable crippled of Smash Bros. 

And that’s the different large entreaty of the Nyxi Wizard: providing manufacturing polish to a nostalgic plan that modders person been emulating for years now. While the look instantly conjures images of precocious nighttime GameCube sessions, it besides follows successful the footsteps of a controller that would go the question of the future, from the deficiency of wires to the offset joysticks. Almost precisely 20 years later, we’re inactive surviving successful the aboriginal Nintendo’s Wavebird built.

Having not tried it yet, I person nary thought if it volition really consciousness arsenic good, oregon clasp up arsenic well, arsenic the institution boasts. But it is large to spot the current renaissance successful gamepad design proceed to unfold.