RIM has the most innovative gaming peripheral at GDC
GDC 2012: Simple little app turns a Blackberry into a gaming device
Mar 8, 2012 in Display, Gaming, Graphics, Humor, Mobile, Opinion, Software Tweet
by Charlie Demerjian
What is the best gaming peripheral we have seen at GDC? Would you believe it if we said a Blackberry phone?
Yes, SemiAccurate spent yesterday crawling both massive show floors at GDC, and we found one, yes one, innovative peripheral. (Note: The little rubber ducky was cute but not ‘innovative’) It was a Blackberry smartphone running a little app that seems blindingly obvious in hindsight. The app was written by a RIM engineer, coincidentally the same one who owns the hands on the device in the picture below.
D-Pad app, simple but brilliant
The innovation here is made possible by the Blackberry’s tight synchronization with their Playbook tablet. This allows you to open apps and media on the phone, and have it display on the Playbook. You can then use the Blackberry as a remote control for presentations and whatnot. So far, so corporate.
With this little app, instead of a remote mouse pointer, the author turned it in to a D-Pad. Yup, a fully functional touch screen D-Pad as a remote controller for the game running on the Playbook. In the picture above, the big screen is being driven by the Playbook’s HDMI port, but the same concept works for say kids in a car on a road trip.
It is simple, brilliant, and thinking outside the box. Once someone does it, it seems so obvious, but we can’t find anyone that actually did it before now, so hats off to Blackberry engineers for pushing the gaming frontiers. All they need to do now is allow you to customize your controller, and it could make the phone + Playbook combo a nifty gaming platform. Who would have thought anyone would say that about RIM?S|A
Tags: Blackberry, D-Pad, gaming, playbook, rim
47 Responses to “RIM has the most innovative gaming peripheral at GDC”
People don’t seem to know much about the feature ASRock has offered for a couple YEARS now that does that: Turn your touchscreen iPhone / iPod Touch into a game peripheral. (Granted, no d-pad or buttons I don’t think, but I don’t own anything Apple to test it www.asrock.com/feature/aiwi/index.asp )
RIM was not the most innovative, just changed it a bit and have more public spotlight :D
What’s the big deal? With an Android device you can just hook up a PS3 controller or Wiimote.
I’ve thought of this like a year ago. But it’s still not a very good experience compared to a real controller, since you can’t feel the buttons, and you have to look on the phone’s screen from time to time to make sure you’re hitting the correct ones.
Ah- fashion is a terrible thing, but it allows the future versions of ourselves to have a good laugh at the things we once thought ‘cool’.
While mobile devices with capacitive-touch screens are certainly a useful innovation, the suggestion that all past, current, and future computer use can be moved to such devices is hysterically moronic, but fashion thinking makes people say exactly this.
A ‘d-pad’ is a great example of ‘form following function’ (a concept unknown to dimwit tech journalists). Replicating such a design on a touch device is the height of idiocy. By design, the touch-screen is not tactile. One either targets highlighted regions (buttons), obvious areas (corners, etc) or uses ‘gestures’. Only ‘gestures’ eliminate the need for visual feedback, allowing the user to focus on something else (like the game screen).
Clearly, therefore, the analogue of a ‘d-pad’ on a touch screen is an AI-gesture mechanism where the RELATIVE movements of the current touch positions are compared with previous touch positions to allow the AI routines to guess the intent of the user. Therefore, it would be moronic to draw actual buttons or joypads on the touch device.
However, even the best touch algorithms would provide a terrible experience compared to the cheapest d-pad, and this is why all mobile devices designed for gaming have physical controls.
Serious computers need physical input devices- always have and always will. This fact alone tells you something significant about the future of minimalistic tablets.
Man, hate on RIM much? Why can’t good news just be good news? Competition is *good* people!
Well if they had added the rumble feature as well by setting the phone on vibration and making a fake call that would have been really innovation.
This is a great idea also. Vibrations while gaming on the BBC.
Anyhow can’t wait for RIM’s secret upcoming BlackBerry London and Playphone which is said to redefine mobile phone innovation for both work & play.
This fake call feature is available on many phones, for example on Samsung nonsmartphones.
If anyone is interested in the game being played during the demo – it’s Frogatto, as far as I can tell.
www.frogatto.com/
MY Windows Phone has a similar app for controlling the XBox and has been on there since last year. It also works (though in beta form) with the XBox app in Windows 8. Still, nice to see alternative uses for a bunch of similar technology. It’ll be most useful in the corporate setting unless RIM moves more aggressively into the consumers hearts and minds. Maybe, they’ll mount a comeback with some more innovation and ideas?
The game being demoed looks to be Frogatto. Their official website is www.frogatto.com/
This is great news for RIM. What is really interesting is the fact a business/corporation(s) will have the ability to perform presentations in a unique manner.
As for gaming, use a keyboard and mouse via Bluetooth.
so they’re very proud of reducing a (insert high dollar amount) smart phone to a (insert low dollar amount) game pad that has ZERO tactile feedback?
Well Apple didn’t invent tablets or touchscreens, either, but everyone seems to think they did.
Anyone who has played a game on a Playbook knows that the touchscreen gamepad seems weird for about a minute, then it’s second nature. Just like a touchscreen keyboard.
This is a sweet idea… People don’t understand that RIMs bobbling the release, the Playbook is the most useful and versatile tablet on the market in terms of potential. The Ipad is really more like a laptop without a keyboard.
>then itβs second nature. Just like a touchscreen keyboard.
No. Just no.
Things have been taken further a while ago with multiplayer games on same screen and phones as controllers,ofc only one of the phones is actually running the game.
facts are cable is marchin’ Band, soon beating pants off anything Wii. higher res steam.
doc is break & giga not impossible. ketschupt. spaceleakage.
from lan to software. children,beware….
blackberries ‘n fudge pi,duh….lemon frosting
Well said!
Duh…. lemon frosting!!
So something that was demoed last year in the EA FIFA series for iOS is the most innovative thing you’ve seen? Must be a sorry show this year.