Topic: LOZ Twighlight Princess: why this time helping righties but never any time else

I've seen two separate stories talk about Twilight Princess being mirrored so that right handed players could have an easier time playing it.

The good news is they acknowledge that 90% of the people in the world are right handed.

And as far back as the NES and currently today they do everything they can to thwart right-handed players.

First of all the NES pad could have easily have been an ambidextrous pad if you realize that the cross pad a start and select and B and A are in a straight line therefore could be 180 and made into an a pad either way with movement on the left or right.

You can either plug something in either side depending on which way it's wired or you could have a switch alternating between Lefty mode and righty mode.

Beeshu was trying to fill the void the NES Advantage left for fightsticks, which were called joysticks back then because there were no real specially games known for their fighting which people say require joystick, with the Beeshu NES Jazz. And I heard they were trying to apply for an NES license and they got refused because they offered a right-handed solution. Along with other issues of licensing that was happening from around 1989 to about 1993 with EA reverse engineering Sega Genesis and Accolade making unauthorized Sega Genesis cartridges, Beeshu is trying to get licensed by Nintendo and Nintendo refuse them. The US court said they cannot treat differently because they choose a right-handed layout or an ambidextrous layout and Nintendo is apparently gung ho about that. The only reason they relented was because there was a Beeshu Turbo Grafx Super Stick and a Beeshu Genesis Gizmo which is a three-button version of a Superstick. Nintendo saw that as a business reason to abandon the platform of NES and possibly SNES.

And for being so righty friendly with the NES and without the physical limitations of the Wiimote being required to be played one way or the other it seems like Nintendo wanted to force their Lefty ways on most game consoles by not having righty setups in the Virtual Console games.

And the switch is even worse. At one point they had all buttons remappable except the Stick sticks which could be standard Lefty Style or wiimote Style. Not even allowing the option for righty style.

And they made it so that any controller that's not manufactured by Nintendo to no longer access the button swapping options. Funny thing is they had it and then they removed it.

That's why I still keep my Hori Pad to show them that even if it's not an issue of whether it's licensed or not, because my licensed controller cannot get remapped because of Nintendo.

I have a lot more details about the economics of left-handed joysticks and Nintendo leading the way to a Sinister future. (And I'm using Sinister in the terms of the Original Latin phrase for left-handed. You draw whatever conclusions you want for that.)

Why haven't we heard from beeshu since the SNES days. Because Street Fighter 2 was the justification for having more buttons, for more buttons the larger the difference in prices between a Beeshu ambidexterous joystick and a Nintendo monodexterous joystick.

That's funny they make baseball gloves in all different sizes both left and their right-handed. Same with golf clubs. Same with hockey sticks. There's no one complained that the joysticks are made the wrong way?

Probably that's part of the reason why jama enthusiastically forced it's left-handed policy. Because the primary clients of JAMMA were the arcade owners who want to make it more difficult for the player and the easiest way to do that is force left-handedness.

But you would think when it comes to home councils when no one gets paid by the credit and that the consumer ultimately chooses someone would give consumers the choice for a right-handed joystick.

The last right-handed joystick that was officially licensed by a console maker was the Beeshu Genesis Gizmo, before the Genesis release of Street Fighter 2 Special Championship Edition.

I feel like my inner potential is being locked out by this Polo club that thinks they're doing something protective by offering left the only but in reality now that our kids are dead they're just making themselves less attractive.

By the way I have a story of a 1995 I beat the local player who is great at Street Fighter with a right hand fight stick and so did four other people go from literally winless to perfect (record wise, not stamina wise) against this person who later became a video game champion on National basic cable TV in 2003. And he was the Genesis champion of Blockbuster one of the two years that they were competing.

Anyone else have the same problem as me? Probably most of the people who do have that problem got their starts in the 1980s arcades or earlier, the pre crash 1980s games, where Donkey Kong was the anomaly for joystick layouts, not the standard. From 1980 to 1984 quite a few games offered ambidextrous layouts.

A true American Galaxian or Galaga machine from Midway / Bally would have a joystick in the center and buttons on both sides. It would be revisionist history to make it left move only. Though during the challenging stages you might want to make it left move because you have to rapid Fire your fire button if you're right handed.

Probably most of the people who will responded to this are probably over 45. The same crowd that was enthusiastic about the Amico until it turned out to be a scam.

But if you were younger did you accept the fact that it was left-handed stick or did you question it? Did anyone younger than 40 ask why is there no right-handed joystick in the major markets?

As a lefty myself, I've often wondered why gamepads were one of the few things that seemed to be better suited to a left-hander. I've previously heard the theory about arcade owners forcing forcing left-handed play to make game artificially more difficult for most players - thus feeding more coins into their games - but I've also seen a couple of articles about how the dominant hand is better at more complex movements, combos and timing which is better suited to the buttons (in a right handed person) and the less dominant hand is fine for the stick as you are generally just moving in a single direction. I guess there's at least some truth to that as I do sometimes find myself using my left hand on the buttons if there a point in a game that needs some button mashing or similar. I suppose it depends on the game though - something with pretty intricate stick control might be better with the right hand for most. I know SF2 uses some quarter/semi-circle and 'zig-zag' style controller movements so I guess it might be better with your dominant hand controlling the stick. I haven't played many fighting games so not sure if this is true for the genre as a whole or if it's just a few games.

The the home computers I grew up with such as the C64 and Amiga all had joysticks with buttons on either side from what I recall - at least the ones I had. Weirdly though, the one exception I remember was actually my favourite joystick ever - the Konix Speedking. It was designed to be held in the palm your left hand and controlled with your right, but I actually played the opposite way by holding it at a weird angle with my right hand (so I could press the button) and controlling with my left. I'm sure it probably wasn't very good for my wrist, but worked for me. Most of the home computer joysticks I came across, the buttons only had a single function though (the left button did the same as the right button) and it seems to be the introduction of the gamepad with multiple buttons (such as an A and B button) where it seems to set the standard that left=control, right=buttons. I don't know if this was done to mimic the arcade layouts of the day, or if there's an actual scientific reason for it, but there would be no reason to force left-handedness on a home console to artificially make the games harder so I doubt that was ever the reason the home consoles went with that setup.

While the likes of the Wii remote does 'force' you to play with the D-Pad on the left, the combo of Wii Remote and Nunchuck would allow you to play either way. Interestingly, I've only ever seen right-handed players use the nunchuck in their left hand like a 'regular' controller, but I'm sure there must be players that use it the other way round.

That's what I feel is the beautiful thing about ambidexteroty.

Most arcade games before the 1983 crash had ambidexterous controllers because they were recycling cabinets and it was just easier to make everything ambi.

Sone game are joystick-heavy and put your joystick in the dominant (usually right) hand, and other games are button-heavy.

I can use either a lefty or righty, and certain are easy to play with a standard controller, and others are hard.

If I am right, arcade owners force one style to limit play time, therefore intentionally force goofyhandedness (to borrow a skateboard term.) While players, trying to maximize scores and times, will pick the optimal choice.

And as we both say. Some games are joystick heavy and others are button heavy. The dominant hand does diffeent things, so an ambidexterous joystick should be an ideal goal.

Out of 8 consoles types sold in 1983, 5 of them had ambidexterous controls. (Intellivision, Colecovision, Bally Astrocade, Atari 5200, Emerson Arcadia 2001) one had third party support for ambidexterity (Atari 2600) Odyssey 2 forced right-stick, (and is hardwired so switching is a pain) and Vectrex forced left-stick (but 20+ years later has a hand-switch adapter).

Of course, with their vertical layout sticks/pistol grips causing cramps, if you're normally not ambidexterous in video games, play longer than 20 minutes at a time on one of these machines, and you will be.

Hori USA approved my design of a ambidexterous stick, but severely doubts the main Japanese HQ will accept it.

Gamestop says their number one unfulfillable order is right stick/ambi stick. And it would be a good joystick to offer beyond day one of a fighting game release.

So there is a demand to be tapped. And I'm reaching the right people who is confirming this need. So I'm not the only one.

If you want to see my design and read more about how hand choice in video games seems to be extinguished, visit my website, sinistersticks.com

Hockey sticks are always right handed, actually. There are no left handed sticks as far as I know, and ecen if there are, they are illegal in official play.

Talking about field hockey btw. I have no idea about ice hockey.

I think NHL style hockey has lefty and righty (and possibly ambi) hockey sticks

One sport where all people must play right handed is Polo. But the main reason that's done is to avoid head on horse collisions/ sudden stops which toss riders.

Is there a practical reason for the all righty rule in field hockey?

What is the practical reason why left stick became standard? If it was purely machine operator greed. (Btw the Arcade Machine buyers were the primary customers if the video game companies, not the player directly. That changed in the home game market.). the owners noticed that the precrash games heavily favored right stick, so left stick was the initial thought, even thought it's a losing proposition on button heavy games.

So what did they do? Redesign genres to make less games button heavy.

For example, Schmups changed pre and post crash.

Pre crash schmups were about timing your shots, and not getting caught with your missed shot in midair.

More and more post crash schmups were about dodging bullets. You could easily substitute a brick for your right index finger and still do well.

The shooter changing and the fight game being invented were a product of JAMMA standardization.

Actually with E Honda, I usually do slightly better with lefty controls. But with Z move characters, (Ryu, Ken) I significantly do better righty.

Same reason as Polo I'd imagine - lefty and righty going for the same ball would likely result in collisions.

I'd say it's all about what we've learned.
I've grown up playing with stick on the left, and never felt like ability to control the stick/D-pad was the reason for failing at games. We've just had to adapt to how the game is played.

Most of the reason I've heard people wanting right handed controllers is those was an unusual difference (more than the typical human) in ability between left and right hands.
Able-bodied humans can adapt. I watch one streamer in the A Link to the Past/Super Metroid randomizer scene who has been able to play even Super Metroid hard ROM hacks (which is most of them), with a keyboard. He plays better than I could even play with an original controller.

But that is one of the good things about emulators: you can turn the controller around and remap the buttons.

I only know of one game, Secret of Mana, which had a control option supporting flipping the controller over for right-handed direction movement.
I probably used that once for a few minutes as a kid and then went back to the default.

Well I can "socially" play either way.

But when it comes to competitiveness, for the "joystick heavy" games like Street Fighter, I prefer right stick. But for a manual rapid fire shooter, like Galaga, I prefer button right.

There is a different attitude between playing well enough to complete the story, and playing to be number one. If I go by a friend's house and were playing just to play, I'd use whatever controller they have, but if there was a week's salary as an entry fee to win potentially more, I would be justified in bringing an ambi joystick. (And not a thumb controller)

It all depends on what you're used to. If you've had ambi choices until you were 11 and have them artificially corporately outlawed in the marketplace, you could see why there's a little resentment.

It's like if Little League decided to ban your way of batting in mid-development stream. You would get suddenly frustrated with your sport.