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Haptic Battle Pong... Future of Game Interface?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the one-degree-short-of-kevin-bacon dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Sensable Phantom is a premier force-feedback haptic device and sells for a few thousand dollars now, but when that number comes down, the game industry will be jumping all over the idea of six-degree-of-freedom, precision-force-feedback video games. It looks like Haptic Battle Pong may be the first attempt at a true 6-dof, force-feedback game. It's not Quake, but maybe this is the next big thing in video games?"

5 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. host down :( by jglow · · Score: 3, Informative

    slashdotted already? check out more information on this here

    --


    There's no "I" in Linux.. err..
  2. Google Mirror by tenman · · Score: 4, Informative

    Quick batman to the google mirror...

    here
    or
    here

    hurry of these too will be /.'ed

  3. Exercising more than your mind... by elocutio · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here is a site that explains a little more about 6-D Haptics. Cool stuff.

    Haptics could offer the magical possibility of changing the average gamer from a large cholesterol repository into a lean mass of muscle. Well, maybe not, but it's a neat idea.

  4. When the price comes down? by soboroff · · Score: 3, Informative


    The Phantom has been around for years now, so waiting for the price to come down any further is probably futile. And somehow I don't think Pong is going to unleash massive pent-up demand sufficient to change the production costs that much.

  5. I've got a working SpaceOrb by Wag · · Score: 3, Informative

    I still have one, I actually learned how to play on it before keys+mouse. Funny thing, I actually got pretty decent on it playing FPS games like Quake but I could never quite master the free-space type games like Descent and Forsaken (which came with a free Orb).

    Also, a major problem with the Orb was that they broke. They broke quite often. Hardcore Orb-ers had at least one backup sitting around. The spring would pop and it would be useless. Part of the reason they went out of business.

    They were going to produce a USB version but gave up on it. I'm fairly certain one of the Mars robots was controlled by the Orb prototype device by the same company before they went belly-up.

    I never use this thing as key+mouse is way superior, but if anyone's interested in purchasing it from me to fool around with (working ones are hard to come by), drop me a line at ericfi_1@yahoo.com.