Unboxing a New-Old Stock Microsoft Sidewinder Precision Pro!
As long time readers of The Retro Millennial know, I love retro gaming. Growing up in the 90s was a wonderful time filled tons of gaming classics on both PC and the consoles of the time. Up to this point, pretty much all of my retro gaming collection has consisted of consoles and games from the third, forth, fifth, sixth, and seventh generations. However, I have been slowly working on restoring a vintage Windows 98 machine to broaden my horizons.
I’ve chipped away at it, bit by bit, for over a year and finally got my Windows 98 tower up and running. Now, it’s time to start getting some games! To start off, most of the titles I really want to pick up first are the ones that I either had as a kid or wanted at the time — and many of them are flight simulation or arcade flight games. Naturally this means I needed a joystick.
There are many era-appropriate sticks to choose from, but in my book the only real options are from Microsoft’s SideWinder line. The best-of-the-best (in my humble opinion) are the Force Feedback sticks, but I was concerned about the motors that are inside of them as they are nearly thirty-years-old at this point. So instead I went with the only other joystick I really wanted: the Microsoft SideWinder Precision Pro. My step-dad had one of these back in the day and I wanted one so bad back then.
I found this beauty, new-old stock on eBay at a great price, only $52 USD including shipping. Technically it was “open box” as the seal was broken, but I think it was simply to make sure everything was in the box as nothing else was opened.
On the top of the box is a URL to the SideWinder website that we are invited to check out. Of course the site has been offline for years now, but The Old Net has us covered. Browsing the site in Pale Moon with the Moonscape theme definitely helps give it that authentic mid-90s feel.
I assume there was some tape or a sticker at some point that damaged this part of the box when it was removed. What a shame…
The sides of the box contain a very colorful diagram of the stick’s internals which as well as highlights about what the various buttons and knobs do. The back of the box includes the specs of the joystick for both game port and USB (a new innovation of the time) options, as well as the system requirements. This joystick utilizes the older game port connector that was common in that era, but you could attach a USB adapter if you were using Windows 98 or higher.
Something else that grabbed my attention was an advertisement on the top of the box for an online game called Fighter Ace, featured on the old Microsoft Gaming Zone. Zone.com has devolved into MSN Gaming these days, but in the 90s it was a heavy hitter in the world of online games allowing you to play games like Age of Empires, MechWarrior 3, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000, and more online.
Opening the box for the first time, we get our confirmation that this thing actually was new-old stock. Everything inside was in perfect condition and looked like it hadn’t been touched since it left the factory. The dead giveaway is the gnarly-looking tape sealing the plastic around the SideWinder itself.
In an era where plug-and-play was still novel, and getting drivers through Windows Update was nigh unheard of, we always got driver discs. The cover booklet doubled as a quick-start manual for the SideWinder as well.
Next out of the box was the standard literature of the time. A registration card along with a tri-fold pamphlet reminding us about the Fighter Ace deal. This one included a URL, so naturally we had to check that out too. Now let’s be real here. There is absolutely no way that this was going to work… but I decided to see how far we could get anyway.
Back in Pale Moon I navigated to http://www.zone.com/Promo/ProPromo.asp via The Old Net and we’re greeted with a bare-bones HTML page with information on getting the game. Following the steps, I clicked the first link and… my browser was not supported as it was way too new. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen on The Wayback Machine before, so that’s a new one. Also, talk about a nostalgia hit… I had totally forgotten about zone.com and seeing that orange/purple/green/white logo was next level!
The second link on the promo page , however, did work and we find ourselves at the MSN Gaming Zone. After navigating to the simulation section I tried to download Fighter Ace and was dropped back to the Wayback Machine. Apparently that page was never archived. That’s to be expected. Honestly, I was surprised to get as far as I did.
I kind of wonder if you can actually still register these things…
Lastly, we have the main event.
To my chagrin, this thing came with the USB adapter! It was not on the original listing and I saw nothing on the box indicating it was in there, but I was really excited to find it included! While researching the game port to USB adapters, I’d read that many of the third party ones were pretty sketchy and most people recommended finding the genuine ones from Microsoft to avoid issues. So I had been looking into picking one up on eBay but didn’t want to spend another $10-15 for the official OEM ones.
The stick it self was in perfect condition. The plastic didn’t even feel brittle after all these years. Once it was out of the packaging, my youngest was the first to try it out. He seemed to like it, and my later 16-year-old tried it out with an arcade flight game. He confirmed, “This thing is pretty cool!” so officially got the Gen Z and Alpha seal of approval.
So after nearly three decades this SideWinder has a home.
So far, I have put about four hours into using it and I’m really glad that I found it. Not every game I am going to play will need it, but I’m honestly surprised to see how many games it can work with — specifically the non-flight related games. Again, I was so happy to find the USB adapter in the box as I was hoping to be able to use this with my XP gaming machine as well.
Next up, we will look at the half-dozen or so games that are starting my vintage Windows and DOS game collection.
