Hasta La Gadget!

If you use an Apple gadget like the iPhone or iPod Touch that uses the Lighting connector and iOS, a new portable game controller has turned up aimed specifically at you. The controller comes from MOGA and is called the Ace Power. The controller is the first designed specifically to work with iOS 7′s controller APIs according to the manufacturer.

Like most of the gaming controllers designed for iPhones and iPod Touch devices, the Ace Power expands and the iPhone slips into the middle of the controller. The controller collapses down for added portability when not in use. It also has an 1800 mAh internal battery allowing it to keep your iPhone or iPod Touch juiced up while you play your favorite games.

The Ace Power has dual analog sticks, dual shoulder buttons, a D-pad, and four action buttons. It’s also got easily accessible charging and headphone jacks while your device is docked.

One caveat to all add-on controllers is that games have to be designed with support for the controller in mind. That means the success of the controller is likely to revolve around how many developers add support for it to their games. However, since this controller will use iOS7′s native controller APIs it’s likely that many games will support it down the road.

The device can be pre-ordered for $100(USD) directly from the manufacturer and via the Apple Store soon. For now, you can sign up to be notified when they’re available.

[via Engadget]

The PlayStation 4’s DualShock 4 controller may seem like the logical evolution of Sony’s gamepad design, but we now know that it wasn’t always destined to be that way. Product manager Toshimasa Aoki tells VentureBeat that the company threw out all the rules during the early design phase, and had tested both all-touchscreen gamepads as well as one where a touchpad could move to different locations. The PlayStation team had also considered abandoning its signature bottom-mounted analog sticks in favor of moving them up top, much like Nintendo’s Wii U Pro Controller. However, feedback pushed Sony to a more conservative layout — many early PS4 game developers were worried that a new control scheme would break their software design. While it’s unfortunate that Sony had to restrain its creative impulses, we suspect that many gamers are happy with the end result.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals, Sony

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Source: VentureBeat

Gamers, get into the spirit of the holidays with these tiny but detailed ornaments that look like controllers from video game consoles of yore. There’s an Atari 2600 joystick, a Sega Genesis gamepad, a NES gamepad and a PlayStation controller. There’s a part of me that can’t accept that the PlayStation is a “classic” now.

Here’s a merrier shot of the controllers:

You can order the ornaments from ThinkGeek. $20(USD) gets you a pack containing all four controller designs. Depending on how big your Christmas tree is, you might need to get dozens of these because they’re only about 3″ to 4″ wide.

[via Nerd Approved]

Earlier this year we saw the awesome oversized N64 pillow made by Donna Marie Evans. Donna was bombarded by requests for the pillow, but last month a customer asked her to make a controller pillow from an earlier Nintendo console. The result is this very huggable SNES controller pillow.

Donna said that this pillow was harder to make than the N64 one, partly because of the Super Nintendo phrase. She had to embroider it by hand because she doesn’t have a cutting edge embroidery machine. Contact her on deviantART if you want your own SNES pillow.

Good news for the PlayStation nation. It seems like the Dualshock 4 controller designed for the PlayStation 4 works with the PlayStation 3 console too. YouTuber Udetto, who writes for German gaming site Computer Bild Spiele, discovered the backwards compatibility while fiddling with a debug version of the PlayStation 4.

There is a catch however. Udetto says the controller will only work with the PS3 if it’s plugged in to the console via USB, which means that it won’t work with PS3 games that require you to play wirelessly. I don’t know of any game that has that requirement, but apparently FIFA 14 is one of those games. That’s really odd. Does that mean you can’t charge a PS3 controller and play FIFA 14 at the same time?

We should remember that Udetto’s discovery was with a prototype controller, and despite his positive findings it’s possible that the controller won’t work with many PS3 games. But since we can buy the controller without shelling out for the entire PS4, here’s hoping Sony can make this backwards compatibility official.

[via Engadget]