> "This controller replaces a thumbstick with a trackball"
That sounds like a special hell.
What would even be the point? Making it marginally easier to control products that were never properly re-designed as living room software at the expense of compatibility with essentially every piece of contemporary living room software?
Here's to hoping that if such a thing is actually rolled out, it falls under "an option" and isn't an approach they put too much emphasis on.
Is going to exhaust your thumb and cramp the hell out of your hand in record time.
And on top of that, occupy some 'third' control scheme somewhere between "kb/m" and "gamepad" that developers would have to explicitly target, at a time when so few of them even put the time into adding proper kb/m support for their console-first-PC-port-maybe-if-its-cheap-to-farm-out titles.
I find trackballs (the Logitech M570 in particular) much more comfortable to use over long periods of time personally. The only criticism I have of their design is that having the trackball on the side entails removing a lot of area where additional mouse buttons could have been placed, and I enjoy having extra buttons there to bind to debugging/build/vcs keys.
According to the patent other people in here have already linked, the feature of the gamepad will be that it uses "modules". Modules like directional pads, touch pads or trackballs. You will stick these modules into the pad and they will use interfaces within the controller.
Not sure just how sturdy the thing will be, all this talk about separate components being stuck together by the user sounds kinda fragile. But if it is, you will be able to configure your pad just the way you want.
That sounds like a special hell. What would even be the point? Making it marginally easier to control products that were never properly re-designed as living room software at the expense of compatibility with essentially every piece of contemporary living room software?
Here's to hoping that if such a thing is actually rolled out, it falls under "an option" and isn't an approach they put too much emphasis on.