Do you get "Nintendonitis"?

[XYXZYZ]

I remember back in the NES heyday, there was some morning talk show that was discussing kids with "Nintendonitis", which is where you get sore thumbs, or your wrists start hurting after playing with a Nintendo pad for so long. Kids would go to school and their wrists would hurt when they started writing, etc. And of course, the show went on to prove that video games are evil and will corrupt your child for life.

I had Nintendoitis, my thumbs and wrists would hurt like hell after one single game of Super Mario Bros. (No thanks to that masochistic NES pad.) My mom started to notice but fortunately she didn't really act on it. I had heard plenty of stories about parents restricting their kids from video games because of Nintendonitis, though.

But I soon found the cure- the NES Advantage. Playing with an arcade stick made all the difference in the world; rather than having my hands folded around a game pad with my thumbs doing all the work,(And growing sore against the hard plastic buttons) I can lay my hands down, with two comfortably positioned fingers sharing the workload, and my pinky ready to hit the pause button if need be. The direction was controlled by my thumb, index finger and forearm all working together, putting no strain on one perticular part of my hand. My hands felt fine after hours of play and I haven't used a game pad since. (Though I had to when the SNES came out, and I hated it.)

The only problem for me arised when I played an arcade game like Double Dragon or Crime fighters, tapping the attack button really puts the hurts on my wrist after a while. One day I was determined to finish Crime Fighters, and after stage 4 I had to pause the game, (MAME) hold an icepack to my tortured wrist for about 15 minutes, then pick the game back up. I had to do that three times before I finished the game. But now I have autofire available for all applications where I need it, (Shooters and beat'em ups) so that's taken care of.

What about you, huh?

[keiblerfan69]

Well I do have carpel tunnel and I can mostly blame it on Mario Party and Mario 64.

[dcescott]

Nope, but nextdoor to me in the dorms they did. They were playing SMB3 one early morning after class and went to the caf for lunch and couldn't hold their trays without grimacing.

[rbudrick]

Certain shooters made my hands hurt repetetive button mashing. Feel the Magic for DS did something similar sometimes due to rapid tapping of the stylus. However, I can't recall ever having something like this happen in an NES game. Arcade games make my hands get all pins and needle-like sometimes. Most arcade games arenot very ergoniomic for extended play, imo.

I can't recall what game did it, but I do remember my thumbs being very sensitive after extended sessions over many days....It was probably a GBA game...stupid little tiny D Pad.

-Rob

[c0ldb33r]

I used to get wicked callouses (sp?) on the soft part of my hand right under my little fingers. They stayed with me for years after I stopped playing NES

[keiblerfan69]

Kirby Canva Curse is my worst enemy. I swear 5 minutes of that is like 3 months of Mario Party.

[Matt-El]

I'm different on that aspect.

My hands are baby smooth....yeah.....

[JWKobayashi]

The first Mario Party is easily the worst. Those damn minigames that required you to rotate the analog stick as fast as you could...

I ended up with blisters all over my right palm from the damn game.

[Truffle]

This never effected me. Instead I developed "man hands" where you get really strong hands( my bf doesnt mind! ) especially your thumb/palm area.Whatever thats called...

I recall developing calouses from playing my GameCube for several days all day long. I was playing Metroid Prime or Legend of Z:Windwaker.

[Juganawt]

closest I ever got was having my wrists ache from the rumble, and having a bleeding and blistered left thumb from playing Street Fighter on a Dual Shock D-Pad for about 2 hours.

Worst controller ever for fighting games that need circular motions. It got so bad that I couldn't actually bend my thumb for a day or two while recovering because the blister got so bloody big.

As I have big hands, I also get cramps every now and again from bending my thumbs down to use the Dual Shock's analog sticks. Same with the gamecube's C stick.

[Haoie]

I spend the most time with the DS nowadays, so I do get sore thumbs from titles like Daigasso, and sore wrists from Cooking Mama.

[drwily008]

The worst for me was always the Gameboy SP. My hands are huge and that system just requires you to keep your thumbs to close together.

But, I do remember Nintendoitis! I remember my Mom warning me about it, she had carpel tunnel in her wrists form typing.

[Kid Ice]

Dreamcast controllers still make my wrists sore.

[keiblerfan69]

Dreamcast controllers still make my wrists sore.

They just make my hands sweat like crazy. Same with XBOX and 360 controllers.

[cyberfluxor]

When I was younger I had very few problems with anything. I played mainly PC games non-stop through middle and high school. I never got bad wrists that I know of (maybe in the future it'll haunt me).

As for consules, the only games that I got issues with were the Mario Party like games on the N64. I didn't own any REAL button mashers growing up, but playing the party games at my friends house throughout high school freaking hurt. All those fishing and digging mini games and crap really slaughtered my palms. It was a good thing I kinda sucked at them because my blisters weren't nearly as bad as my buds that are hardcore driving their hands into the controller (like a freaking drill!).

The other week though, I went to the arcade at the beach and played some Aerofighters and button mashed the hell out of it (because there's no auto-fire holding the button down). I used too much wrist and ended up making it get swollen for a few days from the tension pulling on it. It didn't hurt while I was doing general uses grabbing and typing, but it was annoying to see it all puffed up from that. Next time I'll try to remember to do more finger motion and less flick of the wrist button mashing. I spent at least $1 in quarters on the game that night and played for several minutes doing that motion.

I can't really complain too much about controllers though. Most games I own there are accessories that can go with that game that relieve any possible stress. I got a Saturn controller last weekend and that's be quite blissful.

[jcalder8]

I still get the pad on my left thumb after playing a game for a few hours. It doesn't matter what system it is it always happens. It normally takes a day to build up but it takes a good two weeks before it finally goes away and thats only if I don't play any games in that period.

[jcheatle]

The first Mario Party is easily the worst. Those damn minigames that required you to rotate the analog stick as fast as you could...

I ended up with blisters all over my right palm from the damn game.

Ah yes... I never quite got to "blister on the palm" stage, but only because I felt it coming on and wisely quit. Didn't anybody actually notice that during playtesting? Or did they just not care? I seem to remember Nintendo actually offering away "Mario Party gloves" for free through the website. Basically it was their way of avoiding a lawsuit, IIRC. As for Nintendoitis, I also seem to recall hearing about that on the news, but I was 10 and didn't care. Nor did my parents.

[Fighter17]

Oh god try to play shmups and 2D fighting games with a PS2 D-Pad. Major suckage.

[kedawa]

I think it was way overblown by shitty journalists.
That said, the NES controller is horrid.
Every edge on the damn thing is a sharp 90 degree angle that digs into the skin.
I was an SMS/Amiga kid back then, however, so I never really had to endure that piece of junk.

Things are much better now I think, but not all input devices are ergonomically sound.
The DS and GBA SP both dig into my palms, and the old XBOX pad hurts my hands because it's so huge and unwieldy.

[boatofcar]

My hands hurt really bad after playing THUG 2 on PSP. Which is why I don't play it anymore.