In Japan, the six-button switch Mega Drive controller was released

Nintendo thinks the Japanese deserve more buttons than us.

Nintendo announced during its latest livestream that it will be releasing Sega Mega Drive games and N64 games for the Switch. In order to get a real feel of gaming, wireless handheld controls from classic consoles are also released along with the games. These will be available for purchase through the Nintendo Online Store to all online members. For Mega Drive (or Genesis as it was called in other parts of the world), there were two manual controls, one with three buttons and one with six buttons. We in the Western world unfortunately only get to see it with three buttons when it’s released for the Switch, while the Japanese will get a six-button version.

A Nintendo spokesperson wrote about the election:

“For the US and Canada, a replica of the original SEGA Genesis console is the model available. This was by far the most widely used and well-known Sega Genesis console in these regions.”

Now he certainly doesn’t say anything about Europe, but since we also basically have the three-button model, the guess is we’ll be included in that decision. Nor is it the first time in the West that we have blown up buttons. When Sega launched the Sega Genesis mini in 2019, it was released with six buttons in Japan, while in the West we had to make do with three.