["pre-"CES 2020] Alienware UFO (concept)

[LeSheen]

12 hours ago, Hidden Orange said:

The PSP on the other hand was decently successful?

I meant the original psp. In europe it didn't perform that well in sales I think.

For example, I know only two guys who owned one. But everyone of my friends and nephews had a ds.

[Kilrah]

People go to such devices precisely to have the tactile feedback you don't get from a phone screen, so no chance you'll have trackpads. This was proven not to work by the Steam controller. 

[Bombastinator]

19 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

People go to such devices precisely to have the tactile feedback you don't get from a phone screen, so no chance you'll have trackpads. This was proven not to work by the Steam controller. 

It was proven to work great by the steam controller.  I bought one full price.  It was also proven to be too different.  It’s not a joystick or a trackpad. It’s it’s own thing.  With its own learning curve.  The entire tracking method of joystick vs mouse or trackpad is completely different, and with joysticks it’s inferior.  By a lot.  People like joysticks because they get used to them.  They still suck though.  Tactile feedback is an excuse.  Sure it’s nice, but really it’s about being used to something.  Horses have advantages over cars.  Horses have better than AI. Horses have horse sense.  You can drive them drunk for one thing.  If you pass out as long as you can stay on the horse it will find it’s way home.  police still use horses for crowd control because for what they do the advantages are massive.  Not every city has them though.  Just ones that need to do regular crowd control.  China didn’t have enough of them for the olympics so they had to go with segways.  It was a poor substitute.

I’m not willing to use a crap controller just because a bunch of other people grew up having to use it.  You don’t see many horses used as primary transportation any more.

[Kilrah]

Welp too bad, you'll have to get a Smach Z I guess if it ever comes out.

The HTC Vive controllers also had a touchpad and that's also gone becasue it was crap, you'd always miss the right area because you couldn't feel where your thumb was before actually actuating the thing.

[Thaldor]

21 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

The HTC Vive controllers also had a touchpad and that's also gone becasue it was crap, you'd always miss the right area because you couldn't feel where your thumb was before actually actuating the thing.

Actually no. Only one on the VR field who has opted out on trackpads is Oculus which didn't have them in the beginning. All HTC controllers have trackpads and while Valve Index has joysticks they also have multipurpose trackpads which can be used like Vive controllers trackpads.

 

Trackpads vs. joysticks is highly a question about preferences. Personally I think both have their uses and which one is better depends on the implementation and use, like trackpads for strategy games and other games that require mouse like interaction are superior but for a FPS or driving games where you need continuous movement (like turning +360-degrees) or otherway need to get longer movements with limited controller space sticks are superior. As said this depends a lot on implementation, you can make trackpads behave like sticks and it's fine. Personally from controllers I prefer sticks but if I was asked to design controller for PC I would probably go more to the style of PS4 controller with sticks and a trackpad but move the trackpad closer to thumbs like below the controller so you can use it without changing the grip.

[Kilrah]

The one on the index is very different, it's no more a 2D pad, but a single direction scroller that is recessed so you can feel it and it guides you in the scroll direction.

[Thaldor]

27 minutes ago, Kilrah said:

The one on the index is very different, it's no more a 2D pad, but a single direction scroller that is recessed so you can feel it and it guides you in the scroll direction.

Nope, it is shrunk and recessed Vives trackpad, it can sense motion in all directions and even has the button in it. Usability is a different question since there isn't room for side-to-side movement and the button feel is nonexistent which is why it's highly recommended to make it used as the locomotion pad on Oculus Touch (by default SteamVR prefab for Unity3D only has "scroll" and button active on Index controllers but you can still activate the full usability from the code, at least last time I played with Index controllers, been few months that all clients have opted to use just Vive controllers and on free time I don't even want to open Unity).

[TechyBen]

2 hours ago, Thaldor said:

Nope, it is shrunk and recessed Vives trackpad, it can sense motion in all directions and even has the button in it. Usability is a different question since there isn't room for side-to-side movement and the button feel is nonexistent which is why it's highly recommended to make it used as the locomotion pad on Oculus Touch (by default SteamVR prefab for Unity3D only has "scroll" and button active on Index controllers but you can still activate the full usability from the code, at least last time I played with Index controllers, been few months that all clients have opted to use just Vive controllers and on free time I don't even want to open Unity).

It can sense motion in all directions, but is buggy in all by 2 IMO (too small, they should have just made it round).

[icarus_imn]

21 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

There is imho a single reason to use a PC for gaming instead of a console or a handheld: mouse/keyboard.  Mostly mouse.

I mean, with as many indie platformers and whatnot that are out, I honestly find myself switching between my mkb and Xbox controller quite a bit depending on what I am playing. Seeing as this thing runs off integrated graphics, I could understand using it to carry around more platformer-style games while I'm travelling, which a controller setup is going to feel more natural to me anyway.

[Bombastinator]

8 hours ago, Thaldor said:

Actually no. Only one on the VR field who has opted out on trackpads is Oculus which didn't have them in the beginning. All HTC controllers have trackpads and while Valve Index has joysticks they also have multipurpose trackpads which can be used like Vive controllers trackpads.

 

Trackpads vs. joysticks is highly a question about preferences. Personally I think both have their uses and which one is better depends on the implementation and use, like trackpads for strategy games and other games that require mouse like interaction are superior but for a FPS or driving games where you need continuous movement (like turning +360-degrees) or otherway need to get longer movements with limited controller space sticks are superior. As said this depends a lot on implementation, you can make trackpads behave like sticks and it's fine. Personally from controllers I prefer sticks but if I was asked to design controller for PC I would probably go more to the style of PS4 controller with sticks and a trackpad but move the trackpad closer to thumbs like below the controller so you can use it without changing the grip.

Track pads can be set to direction/velocity rather than their more common setting.  The issue I am seeing is in battle royally fps games people with mice own so hard on players with joysticks that mouse users aren’t allowed to play in the same games.  I don’t know about touch pad users.  It’s true that with me it is a preference.  I’m used to mice and track pads.