A Technical Breakdown of the Super Nintendo Controller
Tyler Ortiz
Professor von Uhl
Writing for Engineering D3
4/6/23

Table of Contents
History of the Video Game Controller…………………………………………………………………………………………… 1
Exterior Overview……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 2
Interior Breakdown…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 3
Motherboard Dissection ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8

History of the Video Game Controller
Everything changed for the entertainment market in 1974 when the first video game home console, the Magnavox Odyssey, hit stores (Video Game Console Library, 2023). During those early years, the common controller layout had not yet been standardized. The most popular consoles in the 1970s had disparate controller styles: the Atari 2600 had a four-way joystick and one button, the ColevoVision had a number pad and a dial, and the Magnavox Odyssey had a mock-gun peripheral for shooting style games that used the light off a TV to define its input (Video Game Console Library, 2023). This changed when the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) entered the market in 1983 as Nintendo’s first home video game console (Video Game Console Library, 2023). This console completely changed the face of gaming and kicked off the video game boom. With this console came the NES controller, which revolutionized the game controller market with its new Directional-pad (D-pad) technology that allowed users to input eight different directions in a small cross shaped pad. The NES controller also featured two buttons on the right side of the controller, the A and B buttons, as well as two horizontal rubber buttons in the middle of the controller, the START and SELECT buttons. The D-pad left a lasting impact on the industry, with controllers from consoles such as the Sega Genesis, the Sega Mega Drive, and the Sony PlayStation using a similar style.

When Nintendo released their next home console, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in 1990, they knew that they had to update their controller to keep up with the accelerating competition (Video Game Console Library, 2023). Nintendo realized that two buttons was just too few to have meaningful interactions in many different types of games, so they added two more buttons to the front of the SNES controller and revolutionized the industry for another time with two buttons on the top of the controller: one on the left and one on the right. These buttons went on to be called “shoulder buttons” and were quickly adopted as the new industry standard. The four buttons, now the A, B, X, and Y buttons, in conjunction with the much stronger hardware, allowed for far richer gameplay and vastly improved the user experience. The four-button standard quickly became the industry standard and can still be seen on every major console controller to this day.

Exterior Overview
The SNES Controller consists of a D-pad on the left side of the front, or face, of the controller as well as one START and one SELECT button in the middle of the controller. The right side of the controller also has four buttons, the A, B, X, and Y buttons. The A and the B buttons are a dark purple and are convex while the X and Y buttons are a lighter purple and are concave. This helps players quickly distinguish between the buttons without having to look down at the controller. It also facilitated the ability for a player to hit two buttons at the same time, either the Y and B or A and X, by rocking their thumb back and forth at a diagonal angle. Many games utilized this; for example, Donkey Kong Country allowed a player to run by holding the Y button and jump by pressing the B button, functions that were essential for gameplay and made much easier by the design of the controller. Nintendo also thought hard about the shape and ergonomics of their controller. Their previous foray into home gaming, the NES, had a rectangular shaped controller that was not suitable for use over long periods of time or for players with large hands, criticisms that Nintendo heard loud and clear. To alleviate this, Nintendo designed the SNES controller to be a more rounded shape that fits in the hands of players much more organically; the shape would go onto lovingly be referred to as the “dog bone”. Above the START and SELECT buttons, a Super Nintendo logo decal can be seen very prominently. The top of the controller has the left and right shoulder buttons as well as an 8-foot long wire that ends in a connector to the console.

                                                                                                         

         Figure 1: Controller Face (Ortiz, 2023)                                                                                 Figure 2: Shoulder Buttons and Wire (Ortiz, 2023)

The back of the controller contains five holes with Phillips-head screws filling them. It also has an engraving with the model number as well as other information placed at the upper middle portion of the back.

 

                                                                                           

          Figure 3: Five Phillips-head Screws (Ortiz, 2023)                                                                Figure 4: Back of Controller (Ortiz, 2023)

Interior Breakdown
Unscrewing the five screws grants access to the internal components. The first pieces that come out are the shoulder buttons, the rubber pads that serve as the connector between the plastic piece on the inside and the trace on the motherboard that corresponds to each button. Two metal rods and hinges are also attached to the shoulder buttons to give them a distinctive clicking feel when a user depresses them.

 

                                               

   Figure 5: Shoulder Buttons (Ortiz, 2023)             Figure 6: Shoulder Button Rubber Pads (Ortiz, 2023)                     Figure 7: Shoulder Button Hinges (Ortiz, 2023)

With the pieces that make up the shoulder buttons removed, direct access to the motherboard is possible. The back of the mother board consists of a connector located at the bottom-middle of the board that attaches to the wire that connects to the console. This wire allows the console to send power to the controller as well as receive the digital inputs that come from the controller to utilize those inputs in the software. The top left and top right of the back of the board contains two smaller boards that exist to receive input from the left and shoulder buttons respectively. The smaller boards have small shoulder button rubber pads resting on top and are secured with plastic tabs. When a player presses the shoulder button, the rubber pad is depressed as well and makes contact with the board, where a metal trace exists. When the rubber completes the circuit, the controller understands that that button is being pressed and sends that signal through the wire to the console.

 

                Figure 8: Back of Motherboard and Interior Front of Shell (Ortiz, 2023)

Removing the board grants access to the front shell, which houses the interior of the four face buttons, the D-pad, and the START and SELECT buttons.

Figure 9: Interior Front of Shell, Interior D-Pad, Interior Buttons (Ortiz, 2023)

    The left side of the shell, as seen in Figure 9, contains the four-way rubber pad that controls the four face buttons: A, B, X, Y. On the right side of the shell is the round plastic piece that is the D-pad. The D-pad also uses the same style four-way rubber pad to make contact with the board. In the middle of the shell are two rubber buttons, START and SELECT. These buttons differ from all other methods of input on the controller because there is no plastic piece to correspond with the rubber pad, instead the rubber goes straight through the controller and has the player pushing down on the pad directly to cause the rubber to make contact with the trace on the circuit board. The reason for this is because the START and SELECT buttons are traditionally not used as much in games, as those buttons are mostly used to pause and resume gameplay or have some extraneous function that is infrequently interacted with. Nintendo could just use the pads here as the wear and tear on these buttons would be much more minimal over time compared to the face or the shoulder buttons.

                                                             

Figure 10: Face Buttons (Ortiz, 2023)              Figure 11: Face Buttons Rubber Pad (Ortiz, 2023)              Figure 12: START and SELECT Rubber Pad (Ortiz, 2023)

                                               

Figure 13: D-pad Plastic Piece (Ortiz, 2023)                                     Figure 14: D-pad Rubber Pad (Ortiz, 2023)

 

Motherboard Dissection

Figure 15: Motherboard Front (Ortiz, 2023)

The motherboard, or circuit board, is the brain of the controller. It controls all functionality, receiving input from the user and sending it as output to the console. Each part of the motherboard is associated with a button. On the right side of the motherboard, markings can be seen around the metal circles. These metal circles, called pads, are associated with the four face buttons: A, B, X, and Y. Each pad has a light green trace running out of it that connects to a chip. The chip is called a 12-bit shift register and is used to multiplex, or compile, all button signals from the controller to send to the console. The left side of the controller is the same, with four distinct areas on the board the correspond with the four cardinal directions on the d-pad. The middle of the controller houses the black pads that control the functionality of the START and SELECT buttons. Tracing the green trace that comes out of each of the pads leads to the chip that controls all input. The top right and top left of the motherboard feature two smaller circuit boards that each have a singular purpose: to control the shoulder buttons. The boards each have one black pad to take input from their respective shoulder buttons. A trace connects to the metal rod that attaches the two boards together. That trace also leads back to the 12-bit shift register chip. The reason for the additional boards is to create a large enough surface for the user to press the shoulder buttons down on to. Without the boards, the controller would not be able to accept input from the shoulder buttons. On the bottom left of the board the Nintendo Co. Ltd. copyright is seen and on the right side in the middle of the button pads is the label of the manufacturer of the board: Mitsumi. Overall, the controller could not function without the motherboard; whenever a user presses any of the buttons, they are pressing through the plastic piece and rubber pad directly on to the board, as each component is really there to protect the board from excessive force and damage.

Figure 16: Full Controller Disassembled (Ortiz, 2023)

Conclusion
Dissecting the SNES controller displays a surprising amount of simplicity and elegance to its design. The way Nintendo was able to craft such a complex controller into such a simple package is proof of their merit and is just another example of how they were able to revolutionize the video game industry. Their impact still lasts to this day, as many video game controllers on the market today still share many of the same design philosophies Nintendo utilized way back in 1991. The D-pad is on every controller, four buttons have continued to be the standard, and it’s not possible to find a controller without shoulder buttons of some kind. Without the Super Nintendo, the way players interact with video games today may very well be completely different.

References
History of the Game Controller. Video Game Console Library. (n.d.). Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.videogameconsolelibrary.com/art controller.htm#page=early
Ortiz, T. (2023). Super Nintendo Controller Breakdown [Photo Series (16)]. New York, NY, United States.