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Sony Develops a Universal Game Console Controller
Go Rumors has discovered that Sony recently applied for a patent on a "universal game console controller." According to the patent filing, the controller "includes a hand-holdable housing and a touch sensitive liquid crystal display (LCD) on the housing. The LCD is caused to present, depending on what type of game console a user has selected, a controller key layout for a first type of game console or a controller key layout for a second type of game console. A key layout includes plural keys selectable by a user to input commands to a game console."
Just don't let MadKatz get any licensing.
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
Everbody says the same about these newly fangled "touch"screens and their inputschemes: Give me back my haptic feedback.
As long as the screen does not press back I will suck at the input. I need some input from my fingertips to show me that I am over "the" or at least "a" button. If it's on a screen I have to look at the screen to see if my fingers are positioned correctly.
DO NOT WANT!
Don't get me started on Sony last "new" input scheme, the Sixxaxis. In theory it's great, in reality the missing "weight" feedback destroys every immersion and fun in using the controller like e.g. a valve or a steering wheel.
... whenever a text is transmitted, variation occurs. This is because human beings are careless, fallible, and occasiona
Sony controllers have the worst layout, with the analog sticks in a horrible position, with a form meant for girly hands. They should just give up and use the 360 controller and replace the d-pad with the one from the NES, and there you go, the perfect console controller.
Coming Q4, 2010
Somehow I doubt the LCD could stand the amount of pressure a typical controller button receives. And who would be able to play without feeling the button? I don't want to have to look at the controller only to make sure my finger is over the correct button.
Part of the problem is tactile feedback, since you need to locate buttons by touch during a game. However I think durability might be an issue. People tend to be hard on their game controllers and I can't see a touch screen holding up to the same kind of abuse as buttons.
I like the idea of a reconfigurable controller, I don't don't think we have good tech for it yet.
...And the D-pad will still suck harbles. /I'm looking at you too, Xbox360
"Cheeze it!" - Bender
When Nintendo announced their new console, they hinted that the way we use the controller will surprise us. Various amateur 3D concepts popped up around the net, and most of them displayed a Nintendo controller with a touch-controlled LCD display, controls would change depending on the game.
Now we see Sony applying for a patent on the very same idea, a bunch of amateurs came up with in their free time few years ago.
Obvious patent is obvious.
I think a keyboard actually comes pretty close to an arcade stick for precision because you operate each button with a different finger on it too.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Not to mention that this has been done with TV controllers for, what, years ?...
I already had an application to turn Palm PDAs into such controllers back in 2000.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
In fact, plenty of phone emulators and games have on-screen controllers that do this already.
Until you get to 2 players. Numerous arcade games have two joysticks and two sets of buttons on the control panel, allowing two to four players per machine. Most PC keyboards can't handle the number of simultaneous keypresses that sharing a keyboard would require.
Wouldn't this be better titled "in another desperate attempt to control a marketplace, Sony is developing new controller which they will tout as 'universal' but in actuality will be used by less than 5% of their own console's owners because it sucks so bad"
-Styopa
Anyone who can afford to, get an arcade-style joystick for your system of choice. They tend to be expensive, true; but if you are into fighting games, 2D platformers, anything old school -- hell yes, it will be worth it!
I have to disagree. I've been gaming for a lot of years on a lot of different systems and, in my experience, if you're not playing a flight simulator or something with similar control scheme, a decent d-pad will beat a full-size joystick every time. Nintendo's unified "cross" pad being the best of breed, Sony's bastardized split-design next, with the horrible, horrible 360 pad in 30th place. The stick is ideal for games where you need the ability to move both quickly and precisely (say, to whip to the left and shoot the damn torpedo coming at you) with both hands, but not so much on platformers, for instance, where you want to move precisely before jumping to the next spinning, fiery climbable wall while some demonic dream-dad is throwing knives at you.
I read "universal" as "works on all consoles." In which case, all modern controllers could already be considered universal. They all use USB and Bluetooth.
I think a multi-play controller in general is a good idea, except I think they should just make it so all controllers work with everything. As for one I think it's retarded how despite the xbox controller & ps3 controller both having x, circle, triangle, square, r1/r2, l1/l2, dpad & 2 analog sticks they for no apparent reason 'Can't" work with the other console. Well obviously you'd need a bluetooth dongle for the ps3 ones with xbox but yeah...standard buttons should work together.. That way I could use the ps3 controller with xbox which would make me very happy, as playstations have the analog sticks right where they should be, as I can't imagine why you'd possibly want left thumb up high & right down low...wtf? Touch screen display though, eww, lack of feedback just slows things down :( I always find it silly how a touch keyboard for example is harder to 'Touch' type than a normal one :D
Oh & whoever said the lightness was annoying, had a console party last night & every xbox360-er who used my ps3 commented how nice it was having a light controller lol :P
As someone else mentioned, Sony should have no say in controllers because their controller is a piece of junk. It was a terrible design in 1994, it is still terrible.
Well, the original ps1 controller was essentially a snes pad with l2 and r2 buttons also. the shapes instead of letters is probably to avoid lawsuits from nintendo.
Same with the xbox360 controller, it has x/y a/b but the colours and positions of the letters are different in order to be lawsuit friendly
But I must say that even the best gamepads are not good enough. No console comes with a truly good controller; in fact, only one console ever did: SNK's almighty, eternal, venerable, insanely expensive NEO FUCKIN' GEO!
neo geo controller was a lovely piece of kit, finest you could straight up buy, but I highly recommend fabricating your own with arcade parts, all of the non usb/bluetooth controllers work basically identically, a parallel to serial converter (exceptions: mega drive, master system, c64, neogeo) which you can implement with any microcontroller easily these days, attach a few different connector endings and have switches attached to the micro for selection of what controller standard to use.
I made a jamma to snes connector because I was tired of wiring 14+ wires all the way just for a single controller, serial cuts that to five. (and I can now use custom arcade controller on snes)
The 360 analog sticks do seem to require a lighter touch than the PS3 controllers.
I own all three consoles, but I prefer my 360 for the controller, Xbox live, and achievements (it's a Pavlovian thing, sue me). I have one of the 40gb PS3 controllers with no rumble, which makes the controller feel too lightweight and flimsy to me. I've been thinking up picking up a new one, but I just don't play all that many PS3 games. Generally, the 360 just feels better ergonomically to me. I'm just praying MS is smart enough to leave the controller alone for their next console, except for perhaps improving the d-pad that many seem to hate, which I've never minded, but then again, I rarely use.
I don't hate the PS3 controller or anything... it's just doesn't feel quite as good to me. But honestly, I've had no problems switching back and forth between the two. It only takes a few hours before you forget about a new controller unless it's got really glaring flaws, and I wouldn't say that of any of the current-gen controllers.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Good news for owners of the other consoles.
I played it on PC, with WSAD for movement, and it was still a pain.
-:sigma.SB
P.S. You forgot to mention that the knives were on fire, too.
WARN
THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
Ugh. I feel your pain. Never been a fan of WASD for platformers either, but let's be honest: The Meat Circus is Nightmare Fuel-squared. It would be a pain with a direct perfect neural interface.