I wonder what they're using as the joystick's guts... It'd be interesting to see an optical stick or a hall-effect stick as opposed to the more traditional potentiometers. And given the praise I've heard for all of their other hardware, I might be interested in getting a stick from them (should they take up manufacturing joysticks in general) if and when the 3D Pro bites it. Which hopefully shouldn't be for a long time.
thrustmaster and saitek seem to be the ones on the forefront of sensor tech, using hall and for the latter flex sensors. ch uses the conservative approach, and sticks with (very high quality) potentiometers. this controller looks pretty but i dont see it as being very practical. first thing that catches my eye is it uses a single spring mechanism, ive always loathed single spring mechanisms, as its better to be able to feel the tension in both axes instead of just one with little sense of direction. the grip doesnt look comfy, and the button count is less than id expect.
the screen could probibly display a very small set of graphics. if it has a complete 2d/32 graphics engine + touchscreen support, then its a good idea. if the thing has a script interpreter built in, like python or lua or some such, then it would just be a matter of streaming graphics, code, and data to the display. using like a small arm or fpga chip to do the heavy lifting. set up the api so either the game or the profile software can provide interface data. and for the love of satan make the api open. waiting for ms to develop next generation game i/o will only lead to disappointment (case in point: xinput). this is something naturalpoint should have done with the trackir's api. should have made it open so that it can become a defacto standard, which in turn causes more games to use the standard, which in turn would mean more people to buy their product. but no they wanted exclusivity, all while in the mean time ms undermines their footholed on the head tracking market with kinect, and guess whos gonna design the standard for camera based tracking systems, thats right, m ****ing s.
side rant aside, they better aim for open standards, youre selling hardware, not software. if other people follow suit and make compatible devices, it will diversify your market so what if someone does a lame under-engineered knock off.
the keypad is somewhat generic button arrangement, but i guess its ok and gives you a ****ton of buttons. there seems to be a lot of places where you could put switches knobs and dials. but all i see is a large device with a lot of wasted space, and i would need a new desk to fit it on. there appears to be a small throttle lever there, and assuming there is a 3rd axis, like a handle twist, this is good enough for a mech game, but not quite flight sim worthy. i bet the lack of inputs was to make it xinput compliant. as it seriously limits control count to whats on an xbox 360 pad. the fact that its force feedback does make up for some of the limiting characteristics, but meh. i need to see specifications, not pictures and "omg this looks so cool" reviews. that said i wont be shelfing my ch gear for anything less than a warthog.
