N64 Controller Ports Mistakes & Oddities
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- čas přidán 19. 03. 2021
- In this video I look at various mistakes and interesting details about the controller sockets for the Nintendo 64. Most of these mistakes come from the instruction booklets of there respective game.
Port spreadsheet with all data (All green and blue squares cane be played with port 2 instead of port 1)
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...
Merch
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All footage was recorded with a GV-USB2.
Games featured in this video
Mario Party
Mario Party 2
Mario Party 3
Dr. Mario
F-Zero X
Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards
Mario Golf
Mario Tennis
Star Fox 64
Super Smash bros.
Super Mario 64
Wave Race 64
Killer Instinct Gold
Star Wars Shadow of the Empire
All-Star Baseball 2000
International Track & Field 2000
Kobe Bryant in NBA Courtside
Madden Football 64
Madden Football 2000
Mischief Makers
Monopoly
Mortal Kombat Trilogy
South Park
South Park Chef's Luv Shack
Turok Dinosaur Hunter
Turok 2 Seeds of Evil
International Superstar Soccer 64
International Superstar Soccer 98
International Superstar Soccer 2000
Ogre Battle 64
Rampage 2
Roadster
Space Station Silicon Valley
Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey
AeroFighter's Assault
Gold Nugget 64
Ridge Racer 64
Tetrisphere
Cruis'n World
S.C.A.R.S.
The New Tetris
Pokemon Puzzle League
Paper Mario
Fifa Soccer 64
#nintendo64
#n64
#port - Hry
A ton of time and effort had to have gone into researching this, very interesting information Snooplax!
Glad to see that my friend
ñ
Prove it ?
true
Why do I always find DGR in the most random places
copy protection screens are out, "no controller" screens are in
lol
Could just be the mood I'm in right now, but I definitely get the same feeling as watching anti-piracy screens
2:44 gives the exact same vibes as the Mario Party DS fake anti-piracy screen thing.
@@WasabiKitCatwas just thinking that
Playing without a controller is no party
Apparently prototype N64 hardware had 6 ports; for Super Mario 64 the code might've required you to be plugged into port 5.
Thats a cool theory since mario 64 had been decompild I wonder if anyone could check
@@Snooplax The loop for the connected controllers check only goes from 0 to 3, so unfortunately that doesn't appear to be the case.
@@fraserrisc Right, and port 6 is actually a second serial port in the cartridge, which could be used for a second EEPROM or potentially for other hardware.
@@Sauraen Maybe a modem, like in Morita Shogi 64? (Which also has an EEPROM)
Nope, because you can’t even control the camera from port 2 after beating it from port 1 if you inserted the controller after boot up. Unoccupied ports typically get disabled at boot. This is why most “No Controller” messages don’t go away when you plug one in (Killer Instinct does though). This is also why you can’t do the Easter egg with one controller by moving from port 1 to port 2 after beating it.
"When I turned on Mario 64, I was shocked to learn you can play Mario 64." -Snooplax
How did I not pick this up until AFTER rewatching the part
@@BlueBoi_ThisTakengreat feats in clip chimping
*Luigi:* _No, you need a controller!_
*Waluigi:* _Wah! Waluigi can't be controlled!_
Wahhaha! 😂😂
lolol!
No, what Waluigi is REALLY saying is,
Waluigi: Wah! I'm a REBEL! WAHAHAHAHAHA!
This was his revenge for not having his own dedicated video game.
He's cheering.
i love how Fifa Soccer 64 is just like
?
🎮
I wholeheartedly agree with this.
Definitely made localization easier.
You don't have to translate "no controller" then
@@romajimamulo ¿?
It reminds me of how Macs react when you boot 'em up and there's no drive.
I love Fifa Soccer's no controller message at 7:46, the single "?" seems so passive aggressive to me. It's like "Hmm? You forgot the controller?? The thing you play the videogame with?? How?"
It also doesn't need localizing
"Where controller?"
Resembles some Apple/Mac equivalent "no hard drive / no floppy disk" bootup messages.
for many years now i thought myself to know literally everything there was about mario 64 from beta elements to secrets and up until this day i have never heard about player 2 controlling the ending camera
It was unavoidable information back in ‘96/‘97.
@@emmettturner9452 i wasn't around then
@dshaynietheawesome you're just a baby! ❤
@@TheNightHawk85 i mean im my mid 20s but sure why not im a baby
@dshaynietheawesome more so I think I'm just old. I grew up with an NES and had each of the systems going on forward. It was just a playful joke is all 😀
2:57 It's as if Camelot predicted that Waluigi would become a meme
Lol! 😂😂
I love the thought that if you bought this game back in the day, regardless of what games you played before it, and forgot to put the controller in, this would 100% be your first introduction to Waluigi as it’s literally his first appearance.
I never knew you could control the camera with a player 2 controller in Super Mario 64.
I assume they just add 1 to the variable for witch “socket” to look for camera control from during the credits.
64th like
obviously that's where luigi was the whole time, in the director's chair for that scene
You could do WHAT
Such a neat topic. And who woulda thot that companies had to use “socket” over “port”. :0
Reminds me of how Rare messed up and called the C Buttons by the incorrect names. So they‘d say “C-Down Button” instead of the official “Down C Button”. I don’t think Nintendo actually ever wrote out the name in-game, instead just showing the icon, so I ended up picking up what Rare called them.
One of my favorite "no controller" errors came from AeroGage, where when you start up the game, it goes into the attract mode, as a voice resembling the little green aliens from Toy Story is heard saying "NO CONTROL"
Funny how devs neeeded to be so careful with the data due to cartridge limitations and yet they wasted cartridge space with a silly unnecessary N64 controller model just for that msg 99.99% of people would never see.
The model was probably smaller than a full screen bitmap image.
Like fonts are already there. Print
"NO CONTROL
DEVICE DETECTED"
on the middle in white font on black background.
One of my punishments growing up was having the controllers taken away. I would sit there just looking at the game play with me being helpless to control it.
I think the reason why "Controller port" was discouraged was because the controller has a port too, so when you read "Controller port" you could either think about the port to connect the controller or the port in the controller
Would love an analysis like that for all N64 games which do something if you press/hold a button during bootup. For example in Mario Party games it allows you to change the language.
Even from the very beginning, Camelot memed Waluigi
Nice investigation. I am still waiting for someone to do an analysis of all the "memory pak managers" across every game in system.
There is a "default" (i.e. ugly) Controller PAK manager that was available to developers, and a manager was required if the game used the Controller PAK for game saves. Although some developers created their own. One of the prettier and full featured ones is in Perfect Dark. Hold the Start button when you turn on the game.
I know mystical ninja has a custom one.
I didn’t know you can hold start while turning on the n64 to access the memory pak manager until recently
I remember Quake 64 having a really good manager. When I had a memory pak glitch out for whatever reason (probably because I liked using a 3rd party rumble pak with a memory pak built in) Quake 64 was the only game that could fix them. I remember paks glitching out and while other games would offer to format or repair the pak. Often it would fail but Quake 64 not only saved the pak but often saves on it too. In retrospect I probably should of gotten official rumble and memory paks but it was really nice just flipping a switch and not having to swap or keep track of 2 paks.
5:56 HAHA. RONALDINHO SOC- wait what
2:58: So, you wanted to plug your controller here to play some Mario Tennis?...
*TOO BAD, WALUIGI TIME.*
To be fair, the title of this video may actually justify using socket instead of port. When I saw the word port, I had a very different idea of what the video would be about lol
Thats a good point. I changed the title to controller ports instead of just controllers so that should stop any confusion
@@Snooplax no problem, it was an interesting video plot twist
Ah, how annoying that you can't hotplug controllers and get them to detect. Kind of a weird restriction especially given that the PS1 could (and in fact, it was a gimmick required for Metal Gear Solid's Psycho Mantis boss fight). I wonder why this is?
Some games can. I think mario kart can hot plug controllers. Not sure why it wasn't standard
Probably paranoia about static damage
Due to how the ports work, games had to explicitly poll for controllers and then initialize them before they would work. This takes extra cycles, and so most games would only do it at startup--which is what Nintendo recommended.
If Mario Kart did allow it, I suspect they just would poll for controllers only when you were on the menu screens, where performance doesn't matter as much.
I suspect PlayStation still used the older method where it checks for controller input even if there is no controller present. That's how the SNES worked, and Sony built the PlayStation based on what they learned when making the Play Station (CD) addon for SNES that never got developed.
Perfect Dark is a very notable exception, I believe. You can hotplug not only controllers, but paks, too!
It's probably related to the zero position of the control sticks. When the N64 is booted, it sets the current location of all control sticks as their zero point. Therefore, if you hold your control stick down, then boot the system, the neutral stick position will be treated as up (because it's further up than the zero position). Any controller plugged in after this boot will miss the calibration.
Pro tip: the broken control port 99% of the time is caused by a blown voltage regulator. This is a little black chip with 3 legs near the actual port. It can be desoldered and replaced with less than $20... Including the tools to do it. Any regulator that outputs less than 5v will work. It comes from ppl not turning off the machine before insert/remove of control. Back then we couldn't use IC to "sense" a controller, so the 64 supplies ~5v to all 4 ports all the time. Removing while live causes a very small short circuit upon pin contact. It will eventually kill your 64. Do not attach or remove anything (except transfer pak when prompted) while power is on. (I repair consoles for a living, and I'm tired of running across 64 with this issue... So much so I secretly charge way more than it's worth to fix it)
I was that nerd who had to see every game's "no controller" screen. Never knew there were games other than Mario 64 that let you use other ports though.
You put a bandaid on your N64?!
1:54
To answer your question, about the terms "port" and "socket" as a 39 year old. There was few precedence in the early days of videos games so people would sort of "apply their own labels" half the time. For example, people my age and old call Cartridges "tapes". "Sega tapes" instead of "genesis cartridges" for example yet also, some people would say cartridges. Most adults called controllers "Remote controls" even though they're wired. And naturally, nobody said "wired" or "wireless" just yet. Back then the best we had were "cordless phones" we would apply words we already knew to technology that was new to us. I called it a controller socket back then, so yeah, we 90s kids probably would have understood what you trying to convey, we could barely even agree with each other on the subject.
Even wired is still remote no? As in, you don't have to touch the actual box itself to control it.
@GhostGlitch. Yeah that is very true. However the term itself was first used for TV remote controls. We just sort of applied a preexisting label to something we didn't understand yet. Kinda like how in the 90s, parents would call anything video game related "Nintendo". Like I just got Metal gear solid 1 for Psone and our moms was like "Oh he's playing a nintendo". Sonic the hedgehog on genesis? "Don't play Nintendo for so long, you're gonna get brain damage! That's too fast. I'm getting motion sickness!"
but for the reference sheet to specifically disallow the use of "port", it must have been in popular use at least among developers at that point? and going back in computer history you'll generally see that to be the case
I know what you mean. For example, when I see a robot named T260G, I tend to call him Robo.
Interesting. I’m about your age and never heard people call it a “socket”. I think we used plug or port
Clicked into this expecting ports of games from other systems for some reason half expecting to be bored by it. For some reason the video ACTUALLY being about controller ports is alot more intriguing lol
Thanks for the feedback I changed the tile to Controller ports so now it should be more clear
@@Snooplax You're welcome! Thanks for the response. I enjoyed the video. Was amazed at the research and trial that must of went into testing all the games and manuals
This is quite possibly the dumbest quality control requirement I’ve ever heard
I can't imagine how much work it must have taken to get all that. Awesome work.
I actually dealt with this issue with my GCN a few years ago. Controller port 1 broke somehow, as I found out trying to play Melee with a friend. Melee mostly worked fine from what I recall, just needed to use other ports and thus limited to 3 players. But there were a few games where it didn't work, the most notable being Soul Calibur for GCN (the one with the Link cameo), where it won't let you past the start screen unless you use the controller in port 1 (doesn't tell you this either). But its even more annoying because I recall playing the game before the port stopped working and once past the start screen, player 2 can control the menu for everything else. I may be mistaken about that part though.
Another game that lacks a no controller message is Puyo Puyo~n Party.
We said “controller port” in the 90s, and saying “socket” would have felt weird 🥴😄
I think that bit about the first controller socket is boilerplate. Because I'm pretty sure there _are_ games where that's the case. I think Ocarina of Time is one of them.
port was kind of a tech personal computer word in the 90's... socket was way broader for anything to do with electricity to machines and biology.
The "no controller" screens give off huge analog horror vibes.
I liked the "No controller" message of Zelda Majoras Mask somehow. Especially the European version in which you receive that message in English, German, French and I suppose Spanish in an alternating way.
I think a lot of it has to do with code and how you clean it up when you perceive that you have completed the production and don't clean up the functions that have to do with controller input. For debugging purposes, they would let all ports work. They might had it on mind but they forgot to clean up maybe.
was the concept of needing a controller in your console really THAT foreign starting in 1996?
It seems so weird to, like, FORBID a game from functioning if a controller is missing on startup-- it's not even like you need to KEEP the controller in for 99% of these games, and like you mentioned, having one unlucky broken port is a totally real issue. idk
Great vid btw! I love how much effort you put into showing off this cool little thing
This was only the third video game console they'd ever made. Plenty mistakes in Nintendo history
It was less about not realising you need a controller and more "oh. I guess my brother unplugged it" or somthing. As to ehy you cant just plug in one after it is booted. Idk...
As an 8 year old those "No Controller" screens would scare me for some reason. What is it with children in the 90s being scared of things like that?
Fear of parents from breaking what they bought.
I believe I had this same issue with Pokémon stadium as a kid.
I have owned and rented many of those games, and have always assumed that they just put that in the manual by default, just so it would be there for a game where it mattered.
Nice job dude!
Thanks I've always been a huge fan of boundary break. Its crazy how much little oddities there are in video games that haven't been found yet.
@@Snooplax How is it crazy if they haven't been found yet?
@@gamerdude0 Because usually games are looked through inside and out but sometimes we find things that somehow we missed before.
@@gamerdude0 he’s just trying to be nice so he can get a shoutout from a dying but big channel
Maybe they needed that screen because they used it as a way to check if the ports was working or certain n64's didn't recognize controllers after the boot process
Those "no controller" messages (especially Tetrisphere) have the same vibe as the Playstation 2 "Disc Error" message where everything turns spooky red and haunted
Some of these "no controller" screens are honestly creepier than most of the anti-piracy messages in games.
7:12 Lmao, that's awesome
Also just a friendly heads up , it should be spelled "Oddities."
Thank you I changed the title!
Socket is more of a British word I think. We say socket for the thing on the wall that you put electrical plugs into.
This... is super cool. Good video. I've played most of these games and never saw these screens. Its neat how the individual engines for each game have different ways of modeling the controller.
Ok, first video of yours I have watched. Was recommended by the algorithm.
This was information I never knew I needed to know. Thanks for all your hard work!
2:43 oh my god that scared the crap outta me! At least it doesn't look creepy, but the fact it's so sudden, even after the logo, makes it a jumpscare! By the way that's cool.
right?? why would they use such scary music?
I remember being like 6 years old playing Star Fox 64 at a friend's house. In multiplayer, each controller port got a different character. I had one friend who kept shutting off the console to switch controllers because he insisted he had to be player 3 so he could be Falco every time.
2:58 Goddammit, I hate when Waluigi steals my N64 and all I'm trying to do is plug in my freaking controller.
Waluigi: It's mine! I'm number 1!
I have no purpose for this information, nor was I ever curious about it. But I still had to sub due to how organized the video and spreadsheet are, and for the archive value.
PS: The channel sounded familiar and after a quick check, this is the same guy who tested the mario kart tracks after changing the vertical scaling - came full circle.
4:22 OMG THAT BOMBERMAN 64 MUSIC
That Mario Golf/Tennis thing isn't an Easter Egg it's a damn jumpscare!
2:44
2:58
I never would have guessed these were in the game! So, are they impossible to see in the Virtual Console versions?
Yep. They can't be seen.
Not unless there is a cheat code.
What if you pulled the batteries on your wiimote while the game booted?
I wonder why they want the first controller plugged in before starting the console
That's exactly what I was thinking too
I love how Space Station Silicon Valley have the "Controller not connected" text in Comic Sans
Them snarky British bois, they knew what they were doing.
When I saw the thumbnail and title I actually wasn't sure what you were going to be referring to. These screens are mentioning and failsafe settings or whatever the heck they should be called are actually things I had no idea about. It seems like a pointless subject but for some reason I found this interesting.
This reminds me of back in the day of the Game Boy color. The cartridges that were black would play in color on the Game Boy color but they were compatible on regular Game Boy and Game Boy Pocket and Super Game Boy so I can play them on the big screen. But the Game Boy color cartridges that were clear and you could see the green inside would not work on original Game Boy or Game Boy Pocket or Super Game Boy. I had this weird dream where something really strange happened when I tried to play one of those Game Boy color games on the Super Game Boy and it basically turned the game into pokémon and I had no control over the player character. I think that dream just was telling me to find out what the hell happens.
So I did find out what happens if I put a Game Boy color exclusive cartridge into the Super Game Boy and try to play it. A screen shows up that just tells you that You have to have Game Boy color to play it. But depending on the game you play the screen that appears can actually be different. Just some random curiosity that ultimately doesn't matter but it was sort of interesting.
That mario golf one would have scared the shit out of me if I saw that as a kid
Courtside is definitely 1st/2nd party. It even has one of the alternate boot types that no 3rd party games used. Every single third party game used NUS-CIC-6102/7101 “Mario Boot” while Nintendo and their partners used 6101/7102 Star Fox/Lylat Boot, 6103/7103 Diddy Boot, 6105/7105 Zelda Boot, and 6106/7106 Yoshi Boot.
6:18 made me think of Silicone Graphics!
4:21 Sweet Bomberman 64 OST
This is really cool and informative, it deserves more views.
The wagging controller plug is hilarious.
7:12 what you see when you die
Very interesting !
I know a few games that let you have a Memory Pak in slot 2 and a Rumble in Slot 1
World Driver Championship does that
F-Zero X has an oddity. If you disconnect the controller during play and reconnect it, does not reestablish the connection like other games, effectively forcing an unofficial game over.
with the time and effort put into this video, it earned a subscribe from me. good job dude!
5:35
HAHAHAHA!
Ronaldinho soccer
This is such a a niche video to make but I was one of those strange kids that tested this for Smash Bros. I thought it was awesome to change colors lol.
I absolutely want a shirt of Waluigi flying away with Luigi's Nintendo 64
_Whoops! You need to put the CD into your computer!_
1:45 Oddly enough, the reason why I found this video was because I was googling "is it N64 controller socket or port?"
Seen I personally find the word ports when people say it in videos to be incorrect but just wanted to be sure, guess times have changed.
Appreciate the research
Several of these don't explicitly state that they have to be in the right ports to play.
Nice, i really like this! Thanks.
Hi. I'm from the 90's. This might be a 3 year late reply, but I might be able to explain the whole port vs socket bit. Simply, it's an English thing. How so?
Do you plug a port, or close it? A port, is usually considered to be 'an opening' or 'passage' to the other side of whatever that port 'hole' is between. Make sense?
Meanwhile, you 'plug' a socket. You 'plug' a power cable into the wall socket via the power cables plug. The side with the prongs.
While an N64 controller may not look immediately like a power plug, it is in effect the same kind of 'technology' as it were. It has multiple prongs set inside the plastic housing, which is the plug. The socket, has it's own housing receptacle for those prongs to slid into. Much like a wall socket.
What you were experiencing 3 years ago, is basically the dilemma of languages in general, in that over time they end up changing and becoming simplified for better or worse due to multiple reasons from laziness of the users of said language, to ineptitude, to just simply the words changing meaning over time due to many reasons, sometimes including the prior reasons.
As my grade 11/12 English teacher put it in my final years of highschool "Hold on to these dictionaries and thesauruses you have today. They'll be worth a lot of money someday when people want to know what English used to be like when you are older and can barely understand anyone."
What's the song that starts at 5:35. I know it, and probably have played the game, but can't put my finger on it at the moment.
Milk Bar theme from Majoras Mask
@@Snooplax Ah, I was actually thinking it must be from Zelda. Thanks!
The scariest part to me is that i seemingly watched this 2 years ago yet don't remember it
Well I just learned from this video about moving the camera at the end of Mario64
Nice video!
Just so you know, your merch link isn't working for me.
7:46 Fifas just like bro how you gonna play the game??
Time to set the SM64 world record speed run in player 4 socket!
Legend of Zelda 64 has a monochrome version of the opening cut scene.
Description says "there respective games". Should say "their"
An interesting thing to check: can you actually plug in the controller after the game starts and have it work--maybe after doing the controller reset action (L+R+Start at the same time).
No surprise about connecting the other controllers after beating Mario 64 from the fourth port. Connecting controllers after booting pretty much never works for N64 games. They typically stop polling for a controller after the initial poll at boot up. This is why you can’t swap to the second controller port to control the camera after beating Mario 64. You have to have two controllers.
One exception is Killer Instinct Gold where the “No Controller” messages goes away as soon as you plug one in. Then again, KI Gold is an early title that freezes on a blank screen when you have a Rumble Pak inserted (instantly boots once removed). Pretty sure Nintendo made some standard library code that handles controller boot up handling and controller pak management.
awesome vid
That bomberman 64 soundtrack really hittin
What’s the music that’s playing around 5:40?
Bro I remember as a kid, and sometimes the n64 just didn't register my controller being connected to the first part for some reason, so one day when I tried to boot up Mario Tennis, I got shocked by that title screen and was terrified. And I mean I think it's kinda hard to blame me for that reaction as it's not every day you see Waluigi flying away with an N64 with that ominous Match Point theme playing
Is there a song list for the background music used in this video?
Cool idea
You missed a regional oddity. The international releases of Bomberman Hero contains a No Controller message.
This message is not present on the Japanese version, as the game boots up with the Hudson logo as normal.
today i learned that the n64 console is officially called the control deck
Mischief Makers mentioned 😊
I wonder if they did most of their QA from the first port and they're trying to mitigate bugs
I don’t think it ever occurred to me to try turning on the system without a controller in port 1.
Could you do the same for GameCube? Or if Players 1, 3, and 4, but not 2 (or something like that)?