Peripiherals

[mavrach]

Is there any chance of ever seeing any other gaming peripherals on the consoles besides the plain old controller?

The racing thread reminded me of steering wheels. So that Logitech one is decent?

10 or so years ago I was big into PC games. Before Microsoft had the Xbox, it made PC games. In particular they had a Sidewinder line of peripherals that I loved. I had a wheel and a joystick with Force Feedback. This wasn't the plain vibration that seems to be a big thing on controllers now.

Force Feedback really realistically simulated the feel of surfaces in a lot of games. In driving games, the wheel mimicked the feel of different road surfaces. You could drive on gravel, off-road, on the road, and the vibrations would alter to feel like those surfaces. Alternately, the Force Feedback joystick would simulate different things. If you were piloting a ship that got hit from the left side, you'd feel a hit from the left. If you were piloting a mech, you'd feel every step.

It just feels like a step in the wrong direction to only have controllers now that vibrate and nothing else. What happened to joysticks? I can't picture a flight game without one. Hell why can't we have a mouse/keyboard use on consoles? Forget analog, nothing is that precise. Considering the PS3's USB input, I'm shocked that this hasn't come yet.

The current exception seems to be the drum/guitar peripherals.



Thoughts?

[mkiker2089]

The PS3 supports mouse and keyboard, but the games don't as far as I know. You can use them in some games for movement with the arrows. I have a standard PC keyboard on my PS3. I don't use a mouse on it though. In some games you can even use the remote for some functions. The point is moot though as you can't "play" that way. It just proves that developers COULD use them.

Peripherals just don't seem to take off. The mouse on the SNES for example, light guns, expansion bays, add on drives, upgraded memory etc. I don't think it's the consumers as much as the developers want to go for the common denominator. The rumble pak on the DS for example is something that seems like a no brainer. All the consoles use vibration and the game won't crash if the person doesn't have it, but developers just never adopted it. I guess they couldn't be bothered to make something that people might not have and never stopped to think that if more people supported it more people would have it. Now the port is gone so Guitar games won't work and you can't use the wheel that would make Space Invaders so much fun either.

Think of peripherals like they gay people in hollywood. No one wants to be the only one publicly known but without people supporting them no one can be known at all.

[mkiker2089]

Let me add that I too tried PC games for a while and had the exact opposite experience. With consoles you have controllers and know where all your buttons are always. As much as the PC per. market had some interesting options, fewer games supported them. I can't tell you how many tech support forums tried talking me out of using a controller (and going mouse / keyboard) rather than help me. I had to learn freakin programing code to get Half Life to work properly with a simple flight stick. That was inexcusable to me. I kept hearing "you'll get used to walking with a mouse". I now use my controller as a second controller on the PS3. At least there I know it will work (usually).

[TemporalWisdom]

Logitech makes great wireless stuff. My PS2 controller doesn't need even a little line of sight. Accidentally hit a button from the bathroom and the signal went right through the wall. Not much of a battery hog, either.

Heh. I wished I had a keyboard for my PS3 shortly after buying the console. A couple days later, I noticed the PS2 keyboard I'd purchased a long time ago and forgotten about. Worked fine with the PS3.

Here. But I've heard that force feedback, fun though it may be for some people, isn't very realistic for flight. Flight is supposedly pretty smooth. Oh, a fighter plane will put on the g's in a dogfight, but can force feedback give that feeling?

I don't know. Why don't you ask a real pilot, if you know any?

[mkiker2089]

I just use an old usb keyboard on the PS3. I thought about getting a Bluetooth model but free versus up to 50 dollars makes the free one seem so much nicer. It's black so I'm going to just clear off space next to the PS3 for it.

Didn't the PSX support a mouse also? I think it had one but only a game or two used it. I know the Super Nintendo had a mouse.