Hasta La Gadget!

If you are an avid gamer on your iPhone or iPad that runs the iOS 7 operating system, you may be in the need of a controller. I think any serious iOS 7 gamer will want one, as touch-based controls suck. We got a bit excited at the prospects of the SteelSeries Stratus wireless gaming controller that we talked about earlier this month. We were excited right up until SteelSeries smashed our testicles with a boot when the price was tipped to be $100.

That is a lot of green for a tiny little controller. The Stratus controller has now officially launched for you to pre-order and the good news is your testes (and your wallet) won’t feel the pain quite as badly. The official pre-order price for the controller in the US is $79.99 (USD).

That price certainly isn’t cheap, but it’s better than $100. Now for the catch, you need to pre-order the Stratus to get it at that price so I suggest you run along and do it right now. Seriously, go do it now. You can pre-order via SteelSeries.

The first two iOS 7-compliant controllers extended the battery of your iPhone or iPod Touch. But they needed to connect to your device to work and were flat out incompatible with iPads. Enter SteelSeries with what seems to be the best iOS 7 controller yet, the Stratus Wireless Gaming Controller.

The Stratus connects to compatible iOS devices via Bluetooth 2.1. It lasts up to 10 hours per charge and has all the inputs you’d find on a console controller, including two analog sticks and four shoulder buttons.

The face buttons and shoulder buttons are even pressure-sensitive. That feature’s actual usefulness is up to game developers though. The controller does have a few drawbacks. First off, it’s tiny. That will be a good thing for some people, but if you have large hands the Stratus is going to be uncomfortable to use.

The image below shows the Stratus in the hands of Kotaku’s Mike Fahey. For the record, he says it “works quite well”, even though the shoulder buttons were too small for his taste.

Mike also mentioned that the controller cannot be used while it’s charging, which he claims can take up to 2 hours. Then there’s its somewhat limited compatibility. The Stratus will work only with the iPhone 5, iPhone 5S, iPhone 5C, 4th generation iPad, iPad Air and the 5th generation iPod Touch running iOS 7.

But perhaps the worst aspect of the controller is its price. SteelSeries has priced the Stratus at a whopping $100 (USD) for US customers and €100 for those in Europe. I guess I’ll just stare at Bastion’s icon for now.

[SteelSeries via Kotaku]

Having a peek at one of the cutest devices we’ve seen pop up at CES 2014 this week we’ve seen the SteelSeries Stratus Wireless Gaming Controller – made for iPhone, … Continue reading

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