(male screaming) - [Bob] The thumb stick
action feels really nice. (buttons clicking) Everything else feels exactly the same. - [Male] And you're going to mod it, you're going to ruin it. - [Bob] This does not need to be modded. However, I'm going to do it. - [Male] God damn it! - Because I need a video. (Bob laughs) (upbeat music) The new Nintendo Switch
online N64 controller feels really good. Pretty much exactly how an
original N64 controller felt, but new. And I haven't felt that new
feeling in over 25 years, so it feels really good to me now. Except for that sodding thumb stick. And all the other various issues that make this thing useless outside of the Switch online app. Look at how tiny and
flimsy that thumb stick is. When I first took this
thing out of the box, I marveled at how solid
that thumb stick felt. But then once I started playing a game, I remembered why I hated
this thing so much. Nintendo did a really good
job making this controller feel authentic, which is great in some ways, and really bad in a lot of others. This controller's layout is
so weird by today's standards, that if you want to
use this $50 controller with anything outside of
the Switch online app, there needs to be some sort of controller configuration option, but Nintendo gave us no options for anything like that. This controller is so similar to the original N64 controller, it made me wonder if we can fix it, like a normal regular old N64 controller. What's that inside look like? And what can it even do
on the switch outside of Nintendo's intended purposes? Is it even worth getting for anything outside of those nine games? (upbeat music) This video's sponsored by Adorama. Oh yes! This is beautiful. It's amazing! I love that! Oh my God, yes! Yes! (beeping) What? (beeping) Gah, Chris Pratts, Garfield. (beeping) In our line of work you don't you don't have
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start protecting your gear now. Finally we're back in business, baby! Just move you arm, just like this. Just move this arm, just like. Yes! Yes! All this for a passport photo? Just move, just move this arm. Yes, yes! You're gorgeous, you're beautiful. I love you. (kissing sounds) Just like that. By the way, tonight on TWITCH.TV/ADORAMAXP I'm going to be giving a little tutorial on how I make my videos. That's 9:00 p.m. eastern time, so set a reminder for yourself. Did I tell you to move that arm? (buttons clicking) (slap) Before diving into this, I tried to find pair downs
on this new N64 controller, and I ran across VK's Channel again. He's the guy who posted about that joy con drift
fix a couple of months ago. Well he's back at it again to let us know that this thumb stick
might actually be worse than the original N64 thumb stick. You see, the original
N64 controller stick box is made from a really
weak brittle plastic. So over time, the stick
box will wear down. That's where all this
white powder comes from. If you open up the stick box of an old, well used N64 controller, you'll see a mess of
white powder pour out. And it is very easy to
wear down the stick box with just regular use. Games like Mario Party are notorious for making you rotate
the stick vigorously. But, even Mario 64 goes hard. The new N64 controller uses the same sort of thumb stick mechanism that the old N64 controller uses, so it will be prone to the same sort of wear and tear. But, VK's Channel notes
that this new thumb stick might even be made of a weaker plastic. So it might even wear down quicker. Of course, where there's a problem, modder's are going to find a solution. At least, that's how it is on
the original N64 controller. There exists a mod that replaces some of the stick box components
with solid steel. This is probably best way
to preserve authenticity, but it's also insanely expensive. Looks pretty sick though. The most popular mod on
the original N64 controller is probably replacing the thumb stick with a game cube style thumb stick. The game cube thumb stick isn't prone to the same sort of wear and tear. It'll last you a bit longer and it feels way, way better. This didn't even start out as a mod. If you've ever played N64 in a hotel room, on one of those lodge net controllers, those had a rotating
ball in the thumb stick, similar to how a game
cube thumb stick works. So, this was a problem a long time ago, and they acknowledged it and found a solution already. You could find these
after market game cube styled stick boxes on Amazon for just $12. And it's a very simple mod to do on the original N64 controller. You just have to unscrew
a couple of screws, and then you just unplug the stick box and plug in the new one. I wanted to give this a
try for a few reasons. My childhood N64 controller
has seen better days. That thumb stick is looser than. Nevermind, it's just loose. I bought another N64 controller off eBay, which had a bit of a better thumb stick. I decided to do the mod on the eBay one, and put this tighter thumb stick into my childhood controller just to preserve its authenticity. And it ended up being a very easy swap. But that's on the original N64 controller. You probably see where
I'm going with this. If you open up the new N64 controller, you'll see that it looks a
little different on the inside. It's a lot cleaner with some more plastic and a new board. There's rumble build in and, of course, this thing has wireless and some buttons on top that
the old one didn't have. But like we said before, the thumb stick is basically identical. Except for that connection, which prevents this from being the plug and play mod it should have been. There's a six pin connector at the end of the wires of the original N64
controller thumb stick, and there's only a four pin
connector on this new one. And that's where this whole
thought should have ended. But it did not. It's been three days since my new N64 controller has been in pieces on my desk. Three days of soldering and de-soldering, and re-soldering. So don't do this. And I want to give a shout out to Layer Shift on Twitter, who, he's the guy who made
that Odin fight stick mod that I love so much, that I talked about a while ago. We've spent a few late
nights on Twitter DM's going back and forth, trying to figure out exactly what the wiring map would look like on this new N64 controller thumb stick, and how we could adapt the
old one to the new one. It looks like this. It's not mapped like the
original game cube controller, even though that also only
has a four pin connector, it's not mapped like the
original N64 controller, and it's not even mapped like this new after market game cube controller mod that you'd put into an
original N64 controller. So it's been a long three days. Now back to that horrible thumb stick. I like a good octagonal gate, but the one in the N64
controller feels really harsh. It makes you snap hard to a direction. Meanwhile, the N64 controller allows for a full 360 degrees of
movement in the thumb stick. I actually found it harder to play games like Mario 64 with this thumb stick over even just a pro controller. But certain games, like Ocharina of Time aren't going to be so easy
with the pro controller, because you need those C
buttons to function as buttons. Shooting arrows with a right
stick just isn't the same. So I wanted so desperately to try to fix this thumb stick. The original N64 controller, and even this new one, the thumb sticks both have potentiometers on the right and top of the thumb stick. And the new game cube
controller mod thing, has potentiometer on the right and bottom. This means, when I bypass the board and finally got everything working, the X axis was flipped. After all that work, this was a bit exciting
that it kind of worked, but also, very defeating. Of course, Nintendo gives you no options to invert this in the OS or in any of the games or anything. So, it was back to the drawing board. But this has a bit of a happy ending, because I did it. It's very jank, but we were able to get this to work. To make the X axis not flipped anymore, that potentiometer has to be on the top. So, what we did, was rotated the entire
board of the thumb stick and then switched X and Y axis. I promise that makes sense. That way, the potentiometer for the X axis can be on top, and the Y axis is basically
exactly where it was. The problem there is
then getting the board to fit in this case still. That took a lot of filing. (filing sound) And, if I filed a little more, I probably could have gotten it perfect. I filed a spot on one side, for the cables to run through. I filed a spot on the bottom left for the board to kind of stick out. And I filed off one of the little, like screw prong things. Even though it's just
kind of sitting in there, I didn't really screw it in, it's still holding on pretty good. The only problem is, there is a mass of wires, and again, part of the board
is just kind of sticking out. So everything's a little tight. I couldn't close it all the way. With some more finagling, I'm sure I can get this pretty perfect. So, there is a happy ending. It is possible. It's just not as easy as it used to be on the original N64 controller. But it could be. They could easily just
make those types of boards, just like they did for the
original N64 controller, they can make them for this controller. But it does feel a lot better with this thumb stick than it did with the original thumb stick. I really hated that octagonal gate. I'm not as hindered by it, I feel like I have the full
360 degrees of movement here, or the octagonal gate
if I really wanted it. I'm sure some of you want
to try this yourself, and I encourage you to, just get ready to absolutely mutilate, and potentially break, your brand new $50 controller. And I could have made this a tutorial, but I did not want to, because I don't think I did a perfect job and I think you guys could probably do something better if
you tried it yourself. I just wanted to show
you that it is possible. Show you whatever ideas me
and Layers Shift came up with, so you guys can take that and run with it. If you want to. Yo. One criticism of this mod on
the original N64 controller was that the game cube style
thumb stick didn't have the same sort of sensitivity as the original N64
controller thumb stick. Also the active area of the thumb stick didn't reach all the way
to the ends of the bounds of the stick box. But, I'm happy to report
on the Nintendo Switch, at least, it looks like
it works just fine. It was a little less sensitive, other than that, it felt fine, though. It also was way more
sensitive than just plugging an actual N64 controller in using one of those hyperkin adapters. That created the sort
of step ladder effect, which isn't there on
the new N64 controller, even with this mod in place. If you'd like to try
this mod for yourself, first of all, you're a very brave soul, second of all, there do exist boards that you could probably
finagle into that thumb stick and could probably shove
it in the case, somehow. Today's day three of this, and I'm assuming it's not
going to go too great. Hey it went really great. We figured it out. I'm very happy about it. But I wanted to include
this in this video, because I wanted to show you guys what I've been up to with this, and why I'm so disappointed
in how Nintendo handled this whole N64 situation, even outside of just the
weird controller mapping. I mean, it works now, but yeah it was way
harder than it had to be. It's still pretty disappointing. I don't blame them for making this controller like a pain in the ass to mod, I know it's a weird niche ask, but it is an additional
disappointment on top of the laundry list of
other disappointments I have with this thing. I could have been a cool
controller to use outside of the Switch online app, even if they just allowed
for controller remapping. This is easily fixable
in a firmware update, so I hope this is still
a work in progress. Not many people are even able to get their hands on this thing. And if you order one now, it won't even ship until next year. So I'm not even so sure
how much they'll support this controller. And for the people who did
manage to get their hands on this controller, who knows how long that
thumb stick will last. Now you can feel free to comment some stupid joke about how this $50 Nintendo Switch controller
is going to get stick drift. It's technically not stick drift, it's like stick pyrolysis. Hey, they make pills for that. Hey, they've sponsored
this channel before. So what do you guys think about this new N64 controller? Did you manage to get one for yourself? Have you played around with it? Are you going hold off, because it's not that great? I mean, if you're going to play these Nintendo 64 games on Switch online, it's pretty cool to have. $50 is a lot though. And like I said in a previous video, those after market ones
don't really work right. I'm hearing good things about
the hyperkin admiral though, if you get a newer one with the firmware. There's also the retrobit tribute I'm hearing good things about. But I don't have one, I never got my hands on one of those either. Anyway, let me know what you think in the comments down below. At me on Twitter. Any and all of this social media garbage. Hey, thank you Adorama for
helping sponsor this video. Don't forget, tonight I'll be on TWITCH.TV/ADORAMAXP
at 9:00 p.m. eastern time to give like a little, I'll talk to you guys
about how I make my videos, and we can talk about gear and I can show you, like, from your projects and stuff, whatever questions you
have, I can answer them. But thank you guys for watching through all this long diatribe. The most important thing that you can do to help support us here, is just subscribe to the channel. YouTube's not good at
showing you every video that I post, so if you turn on notifications, then you'll get to see every video. And share this video with a friend, a friend who maybe would
want to try something like this on their own N64 controller. Maybe they can figure something out, put a new thumb stick in there. Thank you guys very much. Have yourself a good week.
