Now you’re playing with power.
While we can’t play Super Nintendo games on Nintendo Switch just yet, one custom controller and console maker has turned a Switch into a loving tribute to Nintendo’s 16-bit heyday.
Kustom Kontrollerz, an Orange County, CA based controller customizer, has taken an entire Nintendo Switch and retro-fied it to give it a Super Nintendo color scheme. Currently just the Joy-cons are completed, but they look everything the part.
Johnny Marcos, Kustom Kontrollerz founder, told us while his company does skins for other controllers, the Switch controller is entirely custom painted. Marcos, working with business partner Lloyd Cotton, calls the process “a little tedious,” breaking down the Joy-cons and painting each individual part separately.
The controller components are individually painted “rather than mask parts off so we don’t get any paint in the buttons,” he said.
Right now, the SNES-themed Switch is a one-off, with the controllers completed and the rest of the system to follow. However, Marcos told us “soon we’ll have pre-made ones in stock.”
Marcos said his company can do “everything and anything to a controller,” including “chrome, changing colors, matte, glossy, put LEDs, put bullet buttons and so on.”
Nintendo has captured the hearts and minds of creators, with Hyperkin announcing the Retron 1 HD, a high-definition version of its Retron 1 NES clone.
Seth Macy is IGN’s weekend web producer and just wants to be your friend. Follow him on Twitter @sethmacy, or subscribe to Seth Macy’s YouTube channel.