It's a good thing that they redesigned the joystick in the new version.
I used to work at Toys R Us and we demoed the older one. Ms. Pacman was all but unplayable because the joystick was so shoddy. Up and down rarely worked, even right out of the box. Also, they didn't do a whole lot as far as informing the customer that you actually had to "Twist" the joystick in order to steer in Pole Position. We still sold thousands of them though.
Also, I have witnessed expensive TVs being ruined because someone tripped over the AV cables on the older "wired" version, breaking off the AV inputs on the TV.
OUCH
Wireless is good, even if it is piss poor wireless.

-=XD=-