Old hardware doesn't die ... it just gets hacked. As documented in the above video, Jeff Ledger has pieced together a clever little collection of chips and wires to bring vaguely Wii remote style interaction to the Commodore 64.
Perhaps it should be called Wii-ffle Ball, since he's taken a wiffle bat, attached an accelerometer to it, and created an interface that lets the C64 read the sensor's output as a button press. When the bat is swung fast enough, it triggers the switch and, in this case, tells Street Sports Baseball to "swing away."
The latest rumor to come from the pages of EGM lends further credence to one of last month's marketing leaks that Activision has gotten a little gung-ho with their plastic controllers. According to EGM's "skater spy," the next Tony Hawkgame will feature a "new fancy plastic peripheral" (we're thinking something like the Wii Balance Board); for reference, the marketing leak called it "a new motion sensing board controller." Additionally, the game will supposedly not be developed by Neversoft, who at the moment have their hands full with Guitar Hero World Tour's peripherals.
We have a hard time imagining Neversoft, who created the Tony Hawk series and has worked on all previous iterations, not having a part in the next version. We've sent our network of spies into action and will let you know what we come up with.
Alright, this is getting ridiculous. Activision has yet to respond to our requests for clarification, and anecdotal reports continue to contradict our finding that the Rock Band Stratocaster does not work with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith on the Xbox 360. If you'll consult our guitar compatibility matrix, you'll find that incompatibility is par for the course, so we left it at that. But conflicting reports keep coming in.
Our original tipster, who works for a rather large gaming magazine, tested all manner of guitars with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith but, alas, he was on an XDK – the Xbox 360 debug kit (and no, the above is not Photoshopped, it's a direct screen grab). Perhaps something, however unlikely, has changed from the reviewable code to the final retail code? Even then, we've gotten tips as recently as this morning claiming the Rock Band guitar does not work with the retail release of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Frankly, we can't keep track anymore so we'll do the next best thing: power of the masses.
If you opted to save some green and snag one of the 40GB PlayStation 3s, you may have found you're missing more than just backwards compatibility. You're also missing the flash card readers and two of would-be four USB ports.
Never ones to leave a shortcoming un-peripheraled, Nyko has announced the decidedly fugly Media Hub for the PlayStation 3, a dongle that attaches to one of your PS3's USB ports, adds 2 additional ports, an SD slash Memory Stick reader (no Compact Flash, sorry), all while totally trashing the sleek aesthetic Sony was going for. Now all you need is a backwards compatibility dongle and you're all set.
The Activision peripheral tantrum continues, with the mega-publisher still refusing to allow Rock Band guitar peripherals to operate on its Guitar Hero games, including this week's Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Despite reports to the contrary on a coupleforums, when our friendly tipster attempted to use a Rock Band guitar on the Xbox 360 version of GH: Aerosmith he was greeted with the following error: "An unsupported guitar peripheral has been detected. Connect either a Guitar Hero guitar or Xbox 360 controller and press START to continue."
Considering the Rock Band guitar never worked on any of the three new-gen consoles' releases of Guitar Hero 3 (check our guitar compatibility matrix), we're going to assume the same lack of functionality is present in not only the Xbox 360 release, but the PlayStation 3 and Wii releases of GH: Aerosmith as well. Let us know if you've tried it on either of those consoles.
Sony Europe announced this morning that the DualShock 3 will release in the land down under over there on July 2 and in the UK on July 4. The rumble-licious controller will cost £40 -- there is currently no price given in Euros.
So, happy American Independence Day merry ol' England! Crack open a can of Bud, prep some barbecue and go down to your local games shoppe and pick up a DualShock 3. Yes, it's everything the Sixaxis was supposed to be.
SOCOM Confrontation's retail release will include a Bluetooth headset, Sony reconfirmed today -- this time with pictures. While similar to the Jabra headset packaged insideWarhawk's box (and later removed), SOCOM's offering actually appears to be well-designed and, in fact, PlayStation-branded. Features include a prominent Mute button, USB charging cradle, and extended battery life. Sony has neither finalized the design nor priced a standalone model, but the SOCOM bundle is rumored to fetch $80.
Sony has provided a peek at some of the "lifestyle" applications it has in store for PSP in FY08. The company hopes these non-gaming titles will get a PSP into the hands of – you guessed it – non-gamers. Unfortunately, they all use peripherals not currently available in the US. They've all been previously announced for European release; hopefully their inclusion in the latest business update from SCEI head Kaz Hirai points to a pending E3 announcement regarding US plans.
The lineup includes Go!Messenger, which uses the PSP camera add-on for VoIP video chat; Go!Explore, which uses the PSP GPS to ... well, it's GPS mapping software; Go!Cam, which turns the PSP into a digital camera; and, finally, Go!View, which uses the PSP antenna peripheral to turn the handheld into a wireless video-on-demand receiver. Sony is partnering with Sky in the UK for Go!View content. Sadly, our suggestion of Go!Just Go!, an application for handling difficult breakups, didn't make the cut.
EA Sports executive producer and VP David McCarthy has revealed that Moore's division plans to create and bundle peripherals with some of its sports games. "I think you'll see games using that Rock Band peripheral strategy from EA Sports, even within the next 12 months," McCarthy teased during his Paris GDC lecture, reports Gamasutra.
According to additional comments McCarthy made to Next-Gen, it would seem that EA Sports is specifically focused on developing plastic shells peripherals for Wii. "One of the things we're doing is looking at just playing with the Wii remote in a different way, using a whole new peripheral that's out there, kind of thing. So, basically enabling control for the user in a much different way," McCarthy said, adding, "we are prototyping stuff that really does allow us to play with the Wii remote differently." McCarthy promised that something would be shown to the public in the next few months, maybe as soon as E3.
Fancy playing your favorite console titles on PC? If our super-fountain of rumors turns out to be gushing truth, you may be able to do just that. Included in the lengthy list of leaks is a device called "Trioxide," which will reportedly allow users to use their home computers to play Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 titles.
How exactly would this work? The brief blurb doesn't say, but our best guess is that Trioxide merely allows users to send video and audio signals from their console of choice to the PC for displaying. This theory is reinforced by the blurb, which states that any games played using Trioxide utilize their original game controllers, rather than the PC's keyboard or mouse.
Joystiq previously reviewed the Elgato EyeTV Hybrid (pictured above), a device that performs a very similar signal-display operation. Unlike the EyeTV, Trioxide would likely be designed strictly for game-playing, and would be optimized for low latency. It might not be the magic bullet people were hoping for, but Trioxide could still be a pretty sweet peripheral by our guesstimation.
The two USB ports on the back of the Nintendo Wii don't get a whole lot of love, but that might be changing sometime in the near future. According to PC World, a recent posting on Nintendo's job board calls for a Software/Hardware Tester specializing in creating and executing "a test plan for Wii's USB devices."
We already know that Rock Band on the Wii will utilize a USB hub for its peripherals, but the job posting suggests even more USB devices might be enroute. These could include USB keyboards for future online games, or possibly even an eventual external storage solution (though Nintendo's recent disparaging comments on the matter make this unlikely).
Nothing brings us more pleasure than when a single product can unite both the disabled and the lazy, and that's exactly what your friend and ours Ben Heck has cooked up with his new, commercially available one-handed peripheral: the Access Controller, compatible with PCs, PS2 and PS3. You can now pre-order the unit here.
Though the footprint is a bit larger than previous one-handed attempts we have to give him credit, if only for figuring out how to make all the buttons accessible (the layout's even customizable). Now, when can we get our hands hand on a 360 version?
Playing the game based on Terminator and Titanic director James Cameron's next big thing, Avatar, in full 3D sure sounded like a neat idea. After all, the movie itself is being shot to take advantage of the growing number of digital 3D cinemas popping up across the globe. Leave it to Ubisoft prez Yves Guillemot to get us all un-jazzed by revealing to GamesIndustry.biz that the game will only be playable in 3D on certain HDTVs.
According to Guillemot, the technology used to 3D-ify Ubi's Avatar game has been designed only for "a specific TV" and glasses that work with it. He goes on to say that the display is already available in the US. Could these TVs and these glasses be what he's referring to?
So ... no new TV, no Avatar 3D. Bummer. Though Guillemot has confirmed that the game will be playable in one less "D" on that nice, big old style HDTV you just spent your economic stimulus check on.
According to unconfirmed (but "exclusive") information on PlayStation LifeStyle, you can toss another waggle wand prototype on the increasingly large pile of potentially non-existent peripherals. The information, supposedly obtained during a PlayStation 3 focus test held in exotic "****** ****, California," describes motion-sensitive PlayStation 3 controllers that operated via a "mini-tripod that stood about 12 inches high."
Several mini-games, including fencing, paintball and the obligatory tennis are said to have been played with the "incredibly responsive and accurate" devices. PlayStation Lifestyle's "proof" comes in the form of a January e-mail inviting PS3 owners to participate in a focus group "discussing PlayStation 3 games." PlayStation forum chatter does seem to indicate that some Underground members were invited to focus tests in Chicago and Los Angeles during that month, but it lends no credence to the rest of the story.
Naturally, Sony told us, "We don't comment on rumors or speculation."
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Hands-on Impressions Unleashed
Come to our E3 afterparty, we've got over 200lbs. of swag to give you (and only you)
Podcast Rodeo is back, and now with thrice the fidelity!
Hands-on with Spore. All of it. With Will Wright feeding us commentary.
Highlights from Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational 2008!
Listen to the Joystiq Podcast (because your ears can't read)
Posts in category peripherals
The latest rumor to come from the pages of EGM lends further credence to one of last month's marketing leaks that Activision has gotten a little gung-ho with their plastic controllers. According to EGM's "skater spy," the next Tony Hawk game will feature a "new fancy plastic peripheral" (we're thinking something like the Wii Balance Board); for reference, the marketing leak called it "a new motion sensing board controller." Additionally, the game will supposedly not be developed by Neversoft, who at the moment have their hands full with Guitar Hero World Tour's peripherals.
According to unconfirmed (but "exclusive") information on PlayStation LifeStyle, you can toss another waggle wand prototype on the increasingly large pile of potentially non-existent peripherals. The information, supposedly obtained during a PlayStation 3 focus test held in exotic "****** ****, California," describes motion-sensitive PlayStation 3 controllers that operated via a "mini-tripod that stood about 12 inches high." 
