Video game collection: Nintendo controllers

With Nintendo games and consoles being the most common sight in our library, we’ve accumulated a wide range of controllers over the years.

While our video game collection is comprised of games from a wide range of consoles across the three major system developers, my lifelong affinity for Nintendo makes their games the most noticeable in our library.

Beginning with the Nintendo Entertainment System, released in North America in the fall of 1985, and ending with the original Nintendo Switch, released in March 2017, we have every home Nintendo console in our library, sans the recently released Switch 2.

With each console has come a different controller design, with radical differences seen in the transition between the SNES and Nintendo 64, as well as between the GameCube and Wii. Nintendo’s controllers have ranged from streamlined and conventional to unique and unorthodox – the latter of which has defined the company’s consoles for the past 20 years.

Evolving from the candy-bar shaped, bare-bones NES controller, Nintendo controllers of today maintain the integrity of the classic games while including features that keep their consoles up to speed with the more hardcore gamer-oriented PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

With at least two controllers in our collection for each Nintendo console that we own, here’s a look at all of the controllers we currently have for the systems in our library: