iron-will-technologies posts

Iron Will Technologies, the company behind the Peregrine PC game glove controller, has announced today that it has raised a total of $5 million in private investment money. The first $3 million was raised to help engineer, make and launch the Peregrine. The glove went on sale last April and can currently be bought on the device's web site for $149.95

Iron Will has now closed a second phase of investment money that added an additional $2 million to its funds. The money will be used to expand the distribution of the first Peregine glove controller and also to help develop the next generation version of the Peregrine which could be used for other applications, including the military. So far the company has yet to reveal sales figures for the first Peregrine controller.

We feel bad for those companies that announce real news on this day but in this case Iron Will Technologies decided to do that with their Peregrine PC gaming controller glove. Today the company announced they have begun shipment of all of their pre-orders for the product.

While folks who pre-ordered the device were able to purchase it for $129.99, the Peregrine is now being priced for everyone else at its normal $149.99 level. The company claims the glove with its 18 touch points makes it perfect for games like MMO and RTS titles but will people pay $150 for such an unproven product? Good question. We hope to find out with a review in the near future.

The interesting looking PC gaming glove controller The Peregrine from Iron Will Technologies is scheduled to be released to pre-orders later this month. The target audience for such a product is the RTS and MMO crowd so it seems like a natural fit for The Peregrine to team up with Heroes of Newerth, the upcoming multiplayer RTS game from developer S2 Games.

Folks who purchase Heroes of Newerth will be able to also buy The Peregrine controller for $20 off it's normal $149.99 price tag. Conversely, folks who buy The Peregrine will be able to get the full version of Heroes of Newerth for $5 off its $30 price tag when it is released later this spring (it's currently in closed beta testing although invites to join can be easily found).

Unlike the Emotiv Epoc mind-based PC game controller, we have had high hope for The Peregrine, a controller in the form of a glove that is supposed to speed up you response time in PC games, especially in RTS and MMO titles. Last year, the company behind the Peregrine, Iron Will Technologies, announced they were taking pre-orders and that they were going to ship out the first products by the end of January 2010.

Well, it's the end of January and unfortunately it looks like the device is not going to make its first release date. The product's pre-order page has now been changed to say The Peregrine will now ship by the end of the first quarter of 2010. That means the glove will be released around the end of March. The company is still taking pre-orders for the price of $129.99, a $20 discount from its planned price when it shows up in retail stores. Those pre-orders will also still get some extras like three limited edition faceplates and its "product launch certificate of authenticity".

E3 2009 was the place where a number of controller companies tried to push their new and sometimes unusual products. One of the few that caught our attention was the Peregrine, a PC gaming controller in the form of a fabric glove that contains sensors that can serve to take over where a gamer might use a keyboard.

The glove itself is being promoted for being used primarily with RTS and MMO games although technically it can be used with any PC game). Over 30 different game actions can supposedly be handled by the Peregrine glove (we say supposedly since we were not allowed to actually play with the glove; we were told that at this early stage the prototypes would take too long to synch to our hand). The folks who handled the demo at the Peregrine booth seemed to know what they are doing; the USB powered glove let them order World of Warcraft characters to attack and use powers merely by touching two glove-covered fingers with sensors together.