Sandio's Game O' 3D gaming mouse

Serious gamers are always looking for an edge, so any product that promises to transfer to a mouse the movement commands that were formerly restricted to the keyboard is bound to draw some interest. Sandio Technology is showing off one such mouse, the Game O', at E3 this year, calling it "the first and the only six degrees-of-freedom 3D mouse in the IT industry."  From what we can tell, the 2000 dpi laser mouse seems to allow players to move in around in 3D space by translating mouse motions into 3D in-game movement, as opposed to just aiming a weapon's crosshair's, when the button above the scroll wheel is depressed. Sandio will be releasing the Game O' "soon," for the not-unreasonable price of $80.

Update: Although all the details are still unclear, Ars Technica got a brief hands-on with the Game O', and states that 3D movement is actually accomplished by a joypad on the left side of the mouse that's controlled with your thumb (they say that the top button, or perhaps second joypad, didn't even work in the demo). Oh, and AT doesn't seem all that thrilled with the whole concept, either.

[Via MobileWhack, picture courtesy of 4Gamer]

[Eagle117 @ May 12th 2006 11:01AM]

How are you going to circle-strafe if you move when the button is pressed and aim when it is not?

[wenge @ May 12th 2006 11:05AM]

Maybe not so great after all. Read this! http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2006/5/11/3936

[radd @ May 12th 2006 11:14AM]

The picture is upside down?

[Timerider @ May 12th 2006 11:22AM]

If this works the way i think it does then it would be great for people missing a hand that love games, but usefulness is low for anyone else.

[Geckotek @ May 12th 2006 11:26AM]

Wow, that picture makes me dizzy....

[Fortyseven @ May 12th 2006 11:26AM]

What a fruity little thing.

[ultramagnus @ May 12th 2006 12:10PM]

this is not the first 6 axis mouse.

for a start there are "spaceballs" made for cad, and there was a device called an "evomouse" that was also 6 axis

[tiuk @ May 12th 2006 12:19PM]

We have a whole bunch of those old "spaceballs" at work, with serial connections. I think they're either sitting in a box in storage or we threw them out. They apparently cost a fortune back in the day, always kind of wanted to try one out but never got around to it.

[strider_mt2k @ May 12th 2006 12:35PM]

-and be on the lookout for spaceballs II, the soich for moah money.

[Germ @ May 12th 2006 1:25PM]

What's up with the "upside down" pic? Do you enjoy making your readers sick? The mouse looks pretty awesome though.

[Jeff Foster @ May 12th 2006 2:52PM]

woah vertigo.

[Kevin Mershon @ May 12th 2006 3:44PM]

They were showing this thing off at this year's GDC, and to be honest, it was underwhelming. It's somewhat tricky to use, as well.

[Jskrdude @ May 12th 2006 11:42PM]

I think you can still move and shoot if you can use the joypad on the side of the mouse.

This just means that you can set up more hotkeys and keep your fingers on the number-keys to change weapons and stuff.

I'll keep my eye out for it. 80 bucks isn't bad. The worst that'll happen is that you have a mouse with a ton of buttons, lol...

BTW, could someone turn the pic around?

[Someguy @ May 13th 2006 3:22PM]

uhm spaceball isnt a mouse and requires two hands lol
and if you look at the bottem of thier comments. yeah haha

but in all honesty it's really not that hard to adapt too.

the learning curve for using this mouse is around 20 mins for a gamer. but i've seen people pick it up and use it right away.

[Darren Wallace @ May 17th 2006 4:31PM]

I lost my right arm in a motorcycle accident 10 months ago and i'm desperate to find a way to play fps again. I hope this is left hand friendly. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. [e-mail]

[paperclip23 @ Aug 19th 2007 7:35PM]

you should see their new upcoming release....