Sanwa Denki Joysticks

HOT joysticks NUDE inside!

A new eye – one that didn’t know the subtlety of gaming culture – might see nothing in the Tokyo Game Show but super-mainstream console publishers with sexist booths, indistinguishable tile-based free-to-play iPhone games, and romantic collect-em-ups about personified household objects.

But there are joysticks as well.

Last year, Sanwa Denki, esteemed manufacturer of buttons, had a charming little folding-table booth like something from a church fête. And just like a church fête, you didn’t need to scratch very deep to reveal the seam of smut.

In contrast to the hospitality professionals working the Capcom and Sony booths, whose branded clothing merely dropped hints about what it covered, Sanwa’s joysticks were lined up with their nethers hanging right out onto the table.

A high-tension silent joystick including shaft cover – phwoar! – is ¥4860. A standard, non-silent stick is ¥2,000.

A big difference, but is there any worse sound in the world than the inaudible but nonetheless existent clicking of a joystick in a noisy arcade?