peregrine posts

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.

Last June at E3 and again last September at PAX 2009 we got to see and briefly demo The Peregrine PC gaming controller glove. The device is certainly different and for a certain section of PC gamers (MMO, RPG and RTS players) it could be a big help in playing certain game titles.

This week the company finally announced that pre-orders are being taken for The Peregrine glove on their web site. The price for the pre-order is $129.99 which is $20 off the price it plans to sell the glove in retail stores. The gloves are scheduled to ship at the end of January. This special pre-order version also comes with three limited edition face plates for the glove, a "product launch certificate of authenticity" (okay) and membership in what they are calling "Peregrine FTW" (catchy). This program will supposedly let folks get access to things like special promotions, news, contests and even training sessions on the glove with pro gamers. It's too bad that the company couldn't get the product out before Christmas but you can't have everything.

[Via Engadget]

Last June at E3 we got to see the Peregrine PC controller glove in action. While we didn't get a chance to use the glove ourselves we saw live demos where players where using the glove to control games on the show floor. Now the company behind the Peregrine have launched a YouTube channel where you can see how the glove is supposed to work.

The videos use a pro gamer who competes in Warcraft III: Defense of the Ancients tournaments. He mapped the glove to use all the hot keys needed for a DotA match and it seems to look pretty easy (of course we are sure he's had a lot of practice using the glove). Peregrine is scheduled to be a exhibitor at this weekend's Penny Arcade Expo and we hope to finally get some true hands-on time with the controller at the event.

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.