Nintendo · Nintendo Family Computer (Famicom) · 1983
The Japanese Famicom's two pads were wired permanently into the console, and the second traded Start and Select for a built-in microphone. The first units' square buttons stuck, prompting a recall and the switch to round ones.
The original Famicom, launched in Japan in 1983, came with two controllers that were hardwired to the back of the console — they could not be unplugged or replaced individually. They shared the D-pad and A and B buttons that Nintendo carried into the NES, but they were not identical. Controller I had Start and Select buttons; Controller II did not, and instead contained a small built-in microphone that could feed sound to the console. Few games used the microphone, but those that did have become trivia favourites. In the Japanese version of The Legend of Zelda, shouting or blowing into it defeats the rabbit-eared Pols Voice enemies — the reason the Western manual mysteriously claims they dislike loud noise, though NES players had no microphone to use. Takeshi no Chōsenjō asked players to sing into it. The controllers also changed early in the console's life. The first Famicom units had square A and B buttons, which tended to stick when pressed. After a recall, Nintendo switched to round buttons in subsequent units. The console's red, white and gold colours were chosen by Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi after he saw them on a billboard for the antenna maker DX Antenna. Other controllers, such as the light gun and R.O.B., connected through an expansion port on the front of the machine.
The microphone on Controller II, and the hardwired design that the NES replaced with detachable controllers
For years Western players wondered why the Zelda manual said Pols Voice hated loud noise. The answer was the Famicom's second controller: in Japan the hint was literal. The NES dropped the microphone, and the clue became a puzzle with no solution — a small example of how hardware differences between regions can leave traces in a game's text.