As part of the wonderful “I ♥ The PC Engine” series, Magweasel has been posting about accessories for the console, including, recently, various multitap accessories. The “default” multitap for the single-port PC Engine was the official 5-port Multitap from NEC, but Hudson and Dempa (to name two companies) marketed a 3-port version and a 2-port version, respectively, as lower-priced alternatives.

All these multitaps brought up a question in my mind: why is it that having four controller ports seems natural, but three or five is weird? Is it just because we’re used to four, or is there something inherently nonsensical about five people sitting down to play a game?

tags / pc engine / multitap / jc