I just popped in Pinball with my expansion controller and noticed that the controller wouldn't work. I also noticed that Arkanoid didn't work with it either, but that's because it only works with the Vaus controller.
Are there any other games that don't support expansion controllers?
Super Mario Bros. USA for shure.
More about the same topic here:
http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=6701.10
It's mostly non-Japanese made titles that doesn't read $4016.1/$4017.1 (the registers for external controllers 1 and 2) so I'm surprised Pinball doesn't read it.
Some western made games do read them though, like RC Pro Am 2 but only for player 1 and 2.
We should compile a list of all games that doesn't work with ext cons.
I would suspect that most early games from Nintendo would not read $4016.1/$4017.1 because there would be no expansion peripherals released back in 1983 and 1984.
That's what one might think but all launch titles do read it, as well as all other early games I've checked (Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Popeye, SMB and more). Which is why I'm surprised Pinball didn't read it.
I suspect that Nintendo deliberately made sure that developers read these bits so that it could be used for external controllers in the future although they never made any external controllers themselves in the end.
Western developers maybe didn't fully understand their still half in Japanese dev manuals I heard they where provided, and since they where developing on NES they couldn't test it anyway.
I don't get why Nintendo removed it in Super Mario USA though, did they really have to change the controller reading routine from Yume Koujou?
Battletoads is another one. Can't play it on my Sharp C1 till I wire a custom controller for the player 1 port :(
I think the Japanese version do support it. It's a much easier less hard game though.