page_title: Nintendo 64 controller
section_title: Analog stick
hierarchical_section_title: Nintendo 64 controller / Analog stick
caption_attribution_description: English: An N64 controller shown in hand, in its most common playing position.
context_page_description: The Nintendo 64 controller is the standard game controller for the Nintendo 64 home video game console. Manufactured and released by Nintendo on June 23, 1996 in Japan, in late 1996 in North America, and 1997 in Europe. It is the successor to the Super Nintendo controller and is designed in an "M" shape and features 11 buttons, one analog "Control Stick" and a directional pad.
context_section_description: The Nintendo 64 controller was one of the first game controllers to incorporate analog stick technology as a main feature, intended to provide the user with a wider range of functions such as mobility and camera control. The stick is designed to detect 360 independent directions, compared to the 8 independent directions detected by a D-pad, allowing the potential for Nintendo 64 games to more accurately emulate 360° of motion.
  Analog joysticks prior to the Nintendo 64 include those used by the Atari 5200, Sega's arcade systems, the Neo Geo CD analog stick (1994), Sega's analog Mission Stick for the Saturn (1995), and Sony's PlayStation Analog Joystick (1996). The Nintendo 64 controller distinguished itself from these precursors by using an analog thumbstick, which was predated only by the Mega Drive's XE-1 AP, designed by third-party manufacturer Dempa in 1989. The Nintendo 64 controller was released contemporaneously with Sega's 3D Pad for their Saturn system, and was followed during the fifth generation of video game consoles by Sony's Dual Analog and DualShock controllers for the PlayStation console.
  The N64 analog stick uses a pair of optical encoding disks to determine its position, similar to how ball mice work. Since optical encoding disks only give the system relative changes in the position of the analog stick, the system assumes that the stick is centered during power-on and tracks relative movements from there. If things get out of sync, or if the control stick was not centered during power-on, the center position can be reset by pressing the left and right shoulder buttons (L and R) at the same time as the Start button. While the optical encoding disks are mostly digital and provide very accurate relative movements, third party controllers and joysticks often use cheaper potentiometers instead. These allow the controller to track the absolute position of the joystick, but since the signal is analog, it's very noisy and can fluctuate even if the joystick isn't moved.
caption: One of several ways listed by Nintendo for the player to hold the controller
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