Good luck with that: Controllers that heat or cool depending on the game

August 9th, 2010

Next to rechargeable health, vibrating gamepads may be one of the finer innovations of recent video games. But controllers that heat or cool depending on the situation!? That’s just silly.

Nevertheless, researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University think gamers will want their palms to sweat more than they already do, or chill when entering an ice level. Using a pair of thermoelectric surfaces on the sides of the controller, the so-called ThemoGame system conditions the grips by +/- 10 degrees.

Good luck trying to get game developers to adopt that functionality. I’ll admit, this has some interesting uses for visually impaired gamers, something the inventors are focused on. But as far as mainstream gaming goes, $100 bucks says this thing will crash and burn before it even takes off.

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