Digital Trends
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from multi-room media-system maker Sonos, but the company hasn’t exactly been sitting on its hands, rolling out an iPhone application that enables iPhone and iPod touch owners to control their Sonos systems with their favorite mobile devices. Now, the company has introduced the Sonos Controller 200, which ditches the iPod-like clickwheel interface of the previous controller for a 3.5-inch full VGA (640 by 480 pixels) touchscreen display.
Peripheral and accessories maker Logitech has announced its Logitech Wireless Guitar Controller for PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 systems…and like the earlier Premier Edition controller, it’s compatible with all Guitar Hero and Guitar Hero World Tour games. The controller is designed to land at the high end of the fake-guitar universe, featuring a rosewood fretboard, a Floyd-Rose-esque whammy bar for players’ dive-bombing pleasure, and a noise-dampening design for the strum bar and buttons.
“Logitech’s new guitar controller delivers the same unparalleled Guitar Hero experience offered by our previous Premiere Edition to an even broader group of gamers and at a great value,” said Logitech’s product marketing director for gaming Ruben Mookerjee, in a statement. “Everything about the Logitech Wireless Guitar Controller is premium.”
Now that Guitar Hero has proven its OK to make a single game that needs its very own unique controller to play, it looks as if other companies are taking the niche controller idea a step further. On Friday, newcomer Aptus Games took the lid off its Mini-Motion titles – a whole series of games that come with their own controllers, modeled after in-game equipment.
The skateboarding game, for instance, will come with its own skateboard controller, which looks a lot like a Tech Deck skateboard mounted on a joystick. Other titles will include RC cards, baseball, and futuristic racing games.
If you’ve ever wished you could lean into the action a little bit more with your Tony Hawk titles—or just have dreams of hanging ten in a high-concept sci-fi surfing game—then a new announcement from Actiga should offer some excitment. The company has announced that its subsidiary QMotion has signed an agreement with Microsoft to produce next-generation wireless controllers for the Xbox 360. The controllers will be fully endorsed by Microsoft, and span a full range of controller options.
Epson and E Ink have announced the development of a new controller for E Ink’s electronic paper displays that will offer touchscreen-like capabilities. The development would mean that products using E Ink’s electronic paper displays—like the Sony Reader and Amazon.com’s Kindle—could offer onscreen interfaces like menus and buttons, and potentially even let users write notes directly on the display. The controller will be offered in production quantities by Epson; samples should be available next month, with production quantities available in August.
Although last weeks’ Gamers Development Conference in San Francisco has now wrapped up, Sony apparently held over a few announcements from the show for this week, giving PlayStation fans new news on both upcoming bundles and the future of the Dualshock 3 controller on Tuesday.
In a post on the official PlayStation blog, SCEA PR manager Al De Leon revealed that the Dualshock 3 controller, currently a Japanese-only release, will hit the states on April 15 for $54.99. The controller integrates the same Sixaxis sensing features as the original PS3 controller, but adds the Dualshock rumbling that had been missing due to a long legal dispute with Immersion over patent infringement.
“Are you ready to rock?!”
That’s the question Activision and thousands of Guitar Hero enthusiasts hope will be answered this Sunday, October 28, when the long-anticipated Guitar Heo III: Legends of Rock goes on sale in a multi-platform blitz encompassing the PlayStation 3, Microsoft’s Xbox 360, the Nintendo Wii, and the PlayStation 2. More than 3,000 U.S. retailers are expected to host midnight launch events, enabling fans to tap into their inner rock star at the earliest possible moment.
It’s finally on its way. After almost a year of PlayStation 3 players trembling for their hands to tremble, Sony announced at this year’s Tokyo Game Show that the Dual Shock 3 rumbling controller will soon arrive.
The announcement comes on the tail end of extensive litigation over alleged copyright infringement in the Dual Shock design. Sony ended up losing $97 million to Immersion, the rightful owners of the technology, but the companies reached an agreement in March that would allow them to move forward with development of a rumbling controller.
Peripheral and accessory maker Logitech had announced it will make a ChillStream game controller for Sony’s forthcoming Playstation 3 gaming console.
Logitech’s ChillStream technology is designed to keep gamer’s hands cool, dry, and well-ventilated by incorporating a super-quiet 40 mm fan in the game controller; the fan can push as much as 3.41 cubic feet of air through three narrow vents on each side of the controller every minute, keeping the fingers, base of the thumb, and palm cool and dry. The PS3 controller will sport three settings—high, low, and off—and will ship in the U.S. and Japan for $39.99 when the Playstation 3 itself goes on sale in November.
If you thrive on the pressure and tension of a great gaming experience, but sometimes find your reaction times slowed and your performance hindered by that age-old enemy of gamers worldwide—perspiration—then peripheral and accessories maker Logitech has the game controller for you: it’s just-announced Logitech ChillStream.
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