The N64 Funtastic series was Nintendo\u2019s most chaotic design decision, and that\u2019s a compliment. Launched in 1999, the translucent controllers and consoles arrived at the tail end of a broader cultural moment: Apple had just cracked open the iMac G3\u2019s candy-colored shell and shown the world that visible circuitry could be beautiful, and the consumer electronics industry was scrambling to catch up. Nintendo\u2019s version came in six flavors, including Ice Blue, a saturated cyan-teal that looked like it had been poured directly from a Jolly Rancher mold. The controllers were transparent all the way through, which meant you could see every lever, spring, and pivot point in the mechanism. That was the whole point. Showing the guts was the product.<\/p>\n
Killscreen, the Florida-based controller studio that has built its entire catalog on surgical retro revisionism, has now transplanted that exact aesthetic onto a PS5 DualSense. The Funtastic Ice Blue\/Clear is a limited-edition PS5 controller with an Ice Blue translucent front shell and a crystal-clear back exposing the circuit board, wiring, and battery assembly beneath. It is native PS5 hardware, with wireless connectivity, haptic feedback, and adaptive triggers all intact. The base price is $139, with optional Omron hair triggers, mechanical face buttons, and GuliKit TMR thumbsticks available as upgrades.<\/p>\n
Designer: Killscreen<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Killscreen co-founder Erik Consorsha is upfront about the fundamental absurdity here: \u201cThere\u2019s something slightly wrong about putting a Funtastic-style translucent controller on modern hardware. That\u2019s exactly why we did it.\u201d That instinct for productive wrongness is the throughline in everything Killscreen has released. The CubeSense put GameCube colorways and C-stick nubs on a DualSense. The 1080-R matched, with forensic precision, the exact gray of a factory-sealed 1995 PS1 controller, cracking one open just to get the color right. Each release is a deliberate category violation: taking an aesthetic that belonged to one console, one era, one design culture, and suturing it onto hardware from a completely different lineage. The Funtastic Ice Blue\/Clear does the same thing, except the donor and recipient have never shared a design language in their lives.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The original Ice Blue N64 Funtastic controller sits next to the Killscreen version in the press photos, and the color match is uncomfortably close. What the image also captures is 25 years of ergonomic progress in a single frame: the N64\u2019s trident silhouette, one of the most geometrically baffling controllers ever mass-produced, against the DualSense\u2019s precisely contoured twin-grip body. Same shade, completely different idea of what a human hand needs. The face buttons on the Killscreen controller are bright primary yellow, blue, and green, pulled from the N64\u2019s own candy palette rather than PlayStation\u2019s iconic shape symbols, and on a Sony controller body they read as genuinely disorienting in the best possible way.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The 1999 Nintendo controllers were a single homogeneous translucent color all the way through: same Ice Blue from the front plate to the grip tips to every molded ridge. Killscreen splits the register three ways: Ice Blue translucent on the front half, crystal-clear on the rear panel, and matte gray on the trigger caps, thumbstick tops, and d-pad. That tripartite material logic is more visually considered than anything Nintendo attempted in 1999. The clear back is where the real design confidence lives: you can see the circuit board, the wiring harness in yellow and red, the USB-C port, and a Killscreen \u201cHuman Machine Interface\u201d label on the main board. The internals are the display object.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The upgrade options change the character of the controller considerably. The base $139 configuration retains the stock DualSense trigger mechanism with adaptive resistance. Adding Omron hair triggers for $20 converts those into short-travel tactile clicks at around 2mm of travel, eliminating progressive resistance entirely in favor of on\/off precision. Mechanical face buttons at another $20 swap the rubber membrane pads for microswitches, producing crisp tactile feedback more commonly associated with high-end mechanical keyboards. The GuliKit TMR thumbsticks at $39 use tunnel magnetoresistance sensors instead of traditional potentiometers, which means no contact wear and no drift. Fully specced, the controller lands at $208.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Killscreen assembles and tests every unit in-house in Florida, and the run is genuinely limited, consistent with how every prior drop has gone. The Funtastic Ice Blue\/Clear is compatible with PS5 and PC. If the CubeSense and 1080-R are any indication, this one will be gone before most people finish debating whether they need it.<\/p>\n
The post Killscreen\u2019s N64 Funtastic-inspired Translucent Blue PS5 Controller Is Pure 1999 Nostalgia<\/a> first appeared on Yanko Design<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The N64 Funtastic series was Nintendo\u2019s most chaotic design decision, and that\u2019s a compliment. Launched in 1999, the translucent controllers and consoles arrived at the tail end of a broader cultural moment: Apple had just … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n