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Sony Develops a Universal Game Console Controller

Posted by Soulskill on from the floats-like-a-dreamcast-stings-like-a-wii dept.

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."

11 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. The haptic hell waits for them ... by Kong+the+Medium · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:The haptic hell waits for them ... by sonamchauhan · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I agree.

      Here's a blue-sky idea that could help.

      Ferrofluid touch interface
      http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Ferrofluid_20touch_20interface

      Another idea that could help is having analog buttons and joysticks with tiny OLEDs mounted on the keys/buttons/sticks (like the Optimus keyboard). Perhaps even the physicals components could be reconfigurable like the Rubik cube.

      Also wonder if it would be possible to build constructive interference with several piezo sensors to generate feedback

      Anyway, here's to ideas and inventions
      [everything here is public domain]

  2. God no by Tromad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  3. Useless by DeKO · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  4. Nice idea but I think it'll suck by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  5. Wii's concept controllers... by Stan+Vassilev · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  6. You can't patent something so obvious, can you? by mykos · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In fact, plenty of phone emulators and games have on-screen controllers that do this already.

  7. Until you get to 2 players by tepples · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Until you get to 2 players by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

      Couldn't you solve this by plugging in a second keyboard?

      When you plug in multiple keyboards, you have the expectation of being able to assign WASD on each keyboard to control each player's character. But DirectX combines keypress events from all keyboards into one virtual device before passing them to the application. It does the same thing with mouse movements. Some versions of Windows have a "Raw Input API" that distinguishes among multiple keyboards, but Microsoft doesn't promote it to the extent it does DirectInput and XInput. I have a couple conspiracy theories about why: Microsoft wants to sell more Xbox 360 gamepads for use with PC games, or Microsoft wants to sell more copies of Windows on which to play games that need a separate PC per player. Besides, it's a lot harder to fit multiple full-size PC keyboards around one monitor than two arcade-style joysticks around one monitor.

  8. mistitled by argStyopa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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"

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    -Styopa
  9. Re:Awful by walshy007 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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)