Looking at the future (?) of PC gaming tech

Posted May 15th 2008 9:00AM by John Callaham
Filed under: Hardware

If you have a gaming PC, you might need all you need is a powerful rig with a great graphics card, a big monitor, a super sound system and a gaming oriented mouse and keyboard. Oh, but 1Up.com says, "Wait a second, partner.". They have taken a look at some other types of technology that might (or might not) influence how we play games in the future.

Some of these devices are actually available right now such as the Novint Falcon controller that allows gamers to "feel" things like weight and textures inside the game. Other currently available "innovations" include the amBX sound and light system that allows supported games to extend beyond with new sounds and light and the TN Games Vest which allows the wearing to "feel" shots created by in-game shooting. One device that isn't out yet is the Emotiv Epoc headset which has sensors that in theory allow people to use their thoughts to control games. It's not due for release until this fall but the device had a fairly spectacular and fairly public failure during a press conference at GDC last February. In short; it just didn't work. The 1Up.com article also seems skeptical that the Epoc will gain again traction but who knows? Maybe next year at this time I will be playing Crysis with my mind.

Tags: ambx, emotiv, novint-falcon, TN-games-vest

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

I don't think any of these devices will "save" pcgaming mainly because I don't think it needs saving. Even if it did, it won't be from some gimmicky controller (though that sure saved Nintendo =) ). As far the devices go, I have used the Novint Falcon before but it looks like a fun toy, not much more. The amBX tech is pure joke. The mind reading tech might be cool but it also might be completely lame. The PCGamer staff seem to have been having fun with it at least.

...bysmittyPosted at 12:05PM on May 15th 2008 by bysmitty

Played with with....neat idea but there is no way people will keep up with the SDK to make sure this thing works for each title.

Plus using this for something like an RTS doesn't seem that appealing.

Mouse or GTFO.Posted at 12:13PM on May 15th 2008 by skittens

Hi John,

It is true that Emotiv had some wireless issues during our GDC presentation, though in our defense, the XBox controller that we were using also dropped out due to the interference in that room.

To give a nice 3rd party perspective of what we actually had at the show, we like to point people to the IGN piece you can find here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FBCWmtLTCc

Also, we are not marketing the EPOC as a replacement for the keyboard and mouse, rather as an augmentation that currently does not exist.

- Emotiv
Posted at 5:08PM on May 15th 2008 by Emotiv