This giant thing is the Power Console, a hyped add on for the failed SuperGrafX console, which was actually supposed to slide into this unwieldy thing (the console is what's sticking out the back). Why the fuck they thought anyone at all would want to have a controller that forced you to basically put the console on your lap in 1990, I don't know. You might think "Oh, with all of those features, it must have had to hook up to the expansion port, and that's why they did that," but no, it just hooked up to the one controller port on the console. There is literally no reason for this to not have just used a regular ass controller cord. Between that, the specialized flight yoke, the throttle, the big number pad, the dial, and the LCD and LED readouts, I can't see many games ever making much meaningful use of this monstrosity. Certainly not enough to justify the 60,000 yen suggested retail price. But this thing is so over the top and ridiculous I'm wondering if the point was more to get the press talking with a prototype than to actually release a product. Either way, I feel like you won't forget this once you spend a minute thinking about it, and I'd love for someone to find a functional prototype.

These controllers were primarily made for Japanese PCs, but there was an adapter to use them on the PC Engine. The former is wider than most flight sticks, but isn't that strange a design overall, though it does let you swap both joysticks. The XE-1AP is bizarre, yet very much ahead of its time. It came out in 1989, but it has two analogue joysticks (though the right one can only move on one axis, though you can rotate it to pick what axis that is), 10 face buttons, and not only is this probably the first controller with shoulder buttons, but it has four of them. These are both compatible with a grand total of five PC Engine games:

Afterburner II
Forgotten Worlds¹
Operation Wolf
Out Run
Thunder Blade

So the Power Console mentioned above was originally due out in spring of 1990, and four of those games were released in the latter half of 1990, with Forgotten Worlds being the only outlier with a 1992 release. The Power Console appears to have all the functions of these already released controllers, and I'm wondering if they based it on the same underlying standard. If so, it wouldn't surprise me if the original intent of those four 1990 games was to be compatible with that add on, and it just worked out that adding that feature also brought compatibility with these controllers.

One last note: that second controller, the XE-1AP, was also compatible with the Sega Megadrive/Genesis without an adapter, and not only are there a handful of games on that console that use it, but there's three Sega CD games and two 32X games.

1. This one doesn't really have analogue movement, but it lets you use the throttle to rotate your aim.