Resident N64 pad defender here. It's fine to dislike the controller, but I'm never really sure if the "I don't have three hands!" complaint is a joke or just based on people who never played any N64 games or what.

You're not supposed to use all three prongs, ever. It's just a hedge-betting controller. Nintendo was afraid people wouldn't like the new, 3D style of game control and would demand a return to traditional D-pad input.

The N64 controller was their solution: if 3D movement is just a fad that dies out, well, move your hand over a couple of inches and forget about the analog stick. Now you've basically got a SNES pad with six face buttons and better ergonomics.

Obviously, 3D took over that whole generation and there's probably less than 10 games that need D-pad movement, so it ended up being fairly pointless in hindsight. But I can't argue with anybody who starts their design process with "What if gamers hate this new style of input?" because when don't they.