New Cube controller

steveo777 writes: "I was surfing through IGN when I noticed this new controller. It made me fall off my chair laughing (people at work are wondering what could be so funny). But it's no joke. Aparently it's for Phantasy Star Online." If this isn't real, why not? Something like this looks like a great idea to me.

Comments

Thoughts from a video game junkie

[MBCook]

Well, I'm not quite sure what to say. The idea of the keyboard is a good idea for PSO, but I think that it would be very unweildly to use to move around in the game if you have to do that much (I haven't played the game because I'm too cheap to buy it, I only rent. It's not rentable because the serial number of the game is tied to the serial number of the DreamCast, but I digress). I know that it's the name of the company that probably made it (since they're an old controller company), but it seems a little funny to put "ASCII" on the top of a keyboard.

On a slightly different note, I think that if (read: when) someone hacks the gamecube to run Linux/BSD/etc. and X, this would be a great keyboard/mouse combo.

Hardly much of a change

[cgenman]

The inherint problem with any controller of this type is that you have to radically change hand position when going from chatting to movement, both of which should be common in an online rpg. It has to be rested upon something to type, but movement requires that you hands be wrapped around the sides and back. Even mice are manipulated from the top like a keyboard, and yet all online rpg'ers find the transition annoying. This new controller is the aesthetic and gameplay equivalent of gluing a controller and a keyboard together with Elmer's white. While that might have some post-modern artistic appeal, I doubt it will be anything but kludgy in practice. Why didn't ascii design something that could be controlled entirely from the top, designed specifically for pso?