SNES joypad T-Shirt

Nintendo's 8-bit NES and Famicom consoles dominated much of the home video game market during the 1980's. When competition arrived in the shape of Sega's 16-bit Megadrive/Genesis and NEC's PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16 consoles, Nintendo was forced to counter with the 1990 release of the Super Famicom in Japan. Naturally, the western model, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) soon followed and became the best-selling console of the 16-bit era.

The design of the SNES/Super Famicom controller was an ergonomical improvement over the original NES joypad. The rounded sides fit comfortably into the hands and there was now a total of four face buttons (not including START and SELECT). The Japanese and PAL region pads featured colour-coded buttons whereas the US had lilac concave and purple convex buttons. However, it was the two shoulder buttons that showed true innovation and it paved the way for the triggers of modern controllers.

Both pretty and ergonomical, the SNES joypad is often acclaimed for being one of the most influential game controllers of all time.