A little while I got a Japanese Dreamcast controller through ebay, and the surface of the thumbstick is completely smooth, it looks like it was made that way. Is that how the controllers were released in Japan, or did the previous owner simply have an unusually abrasive thumb? I'm thinking of taking some rough grit sandpaper to it, not sure if there are better solutions.
OK, I was just curious since it's perfectly worn, there's no sign of the textured dots that should have been there. Thanks.
Back when there used to be DC kiosks in game stores, I noticed the same thing. The thumbsticks seemed perfectly smooth and I wondered at the time if maybe these were special kiosk controllers, or merely controllers that had frequent use. It's going on 10+ years of use for many of my DC controllers, but they still have the dots. Even still, I'm inclined to agree with CD AGES that it's probably just rubbed off from intense use. The kiosk DCs probably had 5-10 hours of constant use every day until they completely wore out, I probably haven't approached that level of use with my controllers despite playing DC a lot.
I've rubbed a textured plastic joystick surface down before but that looks a bit too even to have been worn from usage. If anything, the bottom of the plastic should be a bit thinner if it was worn down from usage. Doesn't seem to be from the pictures. Just my $0.02 on it. Probably wrong since ll my Dreamcast junk is US stuff.
XBOX Controllers do the same thing, the dot grips wear down. Although the Dreamcast stick is plastic-like isn't it?
