A battery for gamers? Puh-leeze
Most gamers probably don't give two seconds of thought to the batteries behind their wireless controllers, but that hasn't stopped Panasonic from trying to market their new line of Oxyride Extreme Power batteries as "extreme power for every gamer's needs". A recent public relations entreaty promoting the batteries asks wary gamers to picture a Halo match with friends that suddenly goes awry when "all of sudden the battery in your wireless controller runs out of juice. BANG! Instant kill."
Sorry, but with Xbox 360 wireless controllers lasting up to 40 hours on a set of standards AAs, this is far from a major concern for most players. For the paranoid player that's really concerned about a dead-controller kill, there's always the play-and-charge kit, which is more environmentally friendly than disposable batteries and pays for itself after only a few charges.
With the PSP, DS and even the PS3 wireless controller all sporting built-in rechargeable batteries, the years of gamers throwing away their power sources are on the way out. Now if Nintendo would only announce some sort of official recharger kit, the Wii remote gamer's dreams of a battery free future might be complete. Until then, there's always the USBCell.
