The ones release with the North American version of the console truely sucked, for sure, and have remained the worst part of the experience of getting into collecting the 7800 to this day and I’m sure has stopped many from even bothering. Tracking down a working controller only to have it fail within 6 month is a huge PITA.
For a long time getting your hands on the much better European release controller has been the solution though so it’s awesome that zombie holding company Atari has released reproductions of those now. That one thing alone removes a huge barrier to people deciding to get into the original 7800 hardware.
