iPhone getting game thanks to the iControlpad

iPhone gaming aficionados -- your wildest dreams will soon be coming to fruition. Apparently, CraigX (one of the masterminds behind the Pandora project) is also busy whipping up a physical control pad add-on for the Apple device. The peripheral -- dubbed the iControlpad, of course -- will attach to the dock connector on the bottom of the phone and wrap around the sides, and is said to provide a PSX-like feel. The pad's site claims that compatibility is already built in to popular iPhone game emulators, and units are being sent out to other developers as well. The model pictured here is a prototype design -- but frankly, they had us at "Hello."

[Thanks, Andy]

[Micah Blomgren @ May 23rd 2008 6:05PM]

Sweet!

[fred @ May 23rd 2008 7:11PM]

But wont it look awkward when you get a call and you then have to try to pry the thing out?

I mean unless you want to look like you're talking to a PSP...Not that their is anything wrong with that. Lots of people do it all the time.

[fontendet24 @ May 23rd 2008 8:15PM]

I was thinking about some sort of that add-on when rumors about games just starts.
Maybe there's some sort of telekinesis...
Thanks god, that someone have money and power to make this thing real...

[AlphaTeam @ May 23rd 2008 10:19PM]

"I mean unless you want to look like you're talking to a PSP...Not that their is anything wrong with that. Lots of people do it all the time."

It won't looks as bad as the taco-phone of the Nokia N-Gage.

[AJ @ May 24th 2008 12:26AM]

@fontendet24 :
If "telekinesis" were possible, we wouldn't need the add-on, would we? :)

[GreezyG @ May 23rd 2008 6:05PM]

I concur this is way cool. Good job guys.

[Haikibutsu @ May 23rd 2008 6:06PM]

I can imagine so many noobs thinking this is a PSP phone.

[Erasure25 @ May 23rd 2008 8:20PM]

Hello, I'm looking for God of War and Crisis Core... oh, this can't play those? It's onry on the PSP? Then, why bother with this...

[iEye @ May 23rd 2008 6:07PM]

The guys at Sorny are not smiling...

Second!

[tony @ May 23rd 2008 11:23PM]

You're not second, you're last. But who's counting?

[Matt Keller @ May 23rd 2008 6:08PM]

"Hello"


I see what you did there.

[Bryan @ May 23rd 2008 6:10PM]

I would definitely get this if I got a iPod Touch or iPhone. The games play nicely on the hardware, but the current controls are just not good enough.

[Ryan Trevisol @ May 24th 2008 8:19AM]

exactly. without haptics it's very difficult to casually play games on the iphone due to the fact you have to look at the controls instead of the game.

[Jaimi @ May 23rd 2008 6:11PM]

Congratulations. You have taken an iphone, and converted it into a slightly slower psp clone. With less games.

[Engadgetluvsappl @ May 23rd 2008 6:33PM]

Pretty certain the PSP has a slower processor and far less RAM than the iPhone.

[imacmatt09 @ May 23rd 2008 6:36PM]

Yeah but with this you don't have to pay licensing fee's to sony for making a game on a game on their console. The iphone lets anyone make apps/games for it. Thought apple gets a decent chunk of your money for the app store thing plus the $99 a year..... But still its cheaper than developing for a console.

[iEye @ May 23rd 2008 7:23PM]

Ha Ha, that's what you call PWNAGE!, next time know your specs!

[Abuzar @ May 23rd 2008 9:12PM]

It doesn't matter if the hardware is faster, the games on the PSP look much better and run much better.

[Jaimi @ May 23rd 2008 10:09PM]

That's not pwnage, he's just incorrect. Yes, the processor is faster on the iphone. But the powervr 3D chip on it can only push 35% of the polygons that the psp can push. "2-12 million" on the iphone vs "33 million" on the psp. Sorry, you fail. Check the specs yourself, sometime.

[rlynd3 @ May 23rd 2008 11:51PM]

I'm confused... did you just blog in the third person?

[Kurian @ May 24th 2008 12:21AM]

And no one will ever make a professional 2008 quality game on the iPhone.
Fat chance of seeing anything even CLOSE to God Of War or Tekken on the PSP.

[Jaimi @ May 24th 2008 12:26AM]

No. But I suppose you can go on thinking the Iphone is somehow faster thant the psp, even though the psp can push 3 times the polygons. And that somehow the processor on the iphone (at 412 mhz is pusing 450 mips) versus the processor on the psp (333mhz R4000 pushing 430 mips) is somehow wildly faster. 4.6% faster is not enough to outweigh the tremendous advantage the PSP has in 3D. The truth is the psp is a better game machine.

Now, I'm not saying the iphone is terrible, or unworthy (or whatever you rabid fanboys read into what I said) -- The iPhone is a cleary a better phone. My comment had to do with them making the iphone look like the psp.

[DssTrainer @ May 26th 2008 6:37PM]

Pretty sure it would be more games since there are 10,000+ roms available for multiple emulators.. vs the maybe 400 psp games

[Tony Bowman @ May 23rd 2008 6:15PM]

i thought apple had already disallowed software developers access to the dock/connector? at least for programs distributed through the upcoming AppStore.

i'm sure it would be fine for Installer.app/jailbroken phones, though...

[Hayst @ May 23rd 2008 6:24PM]

yes!!! another excuse not to make eye contact or interact with other people!!!

[Hayst @ May 23rd 2008 6:25PM]

fourth!

fail!

[Hayst @ May 23rd 2008 6:26PM]

wait this wasn't supposed to go here....!!??!? crap....

me fail....

[Jhongerkong @ May 23rd 2008 6:47PM]

You failed before your reply

[Ayman @ May 23rd 2008 6:26PM]

oh look its bigger
now i can hold it with my giant hand

[Jimmyy @ May 23rd 2008 6:39PM]

I never understood why this was not done properly with any PDA before hand. Some companies have attempted it, but Gamming in Mobile Devices has never been acknowledged.

[JMoses @ May 23rd 2008 7:21PM]

I second this. Some people have been trying to sync the Wii-Remote with a PDA, but both projects have just stopped progressing. I really wish that someone would have the heart to work something like this all the way through.
http://www.mobilitysite.com/boards/games/153594-wii-mote-pocket-pc.html
http://www.codeplex.com/WiiMoB

[m4dm4n @ May 23rd 2008 9:26PM]

N-Gage.

[generally @ May 23rd 2008 6:49PM]

This is pretty cool! I just hope it doesn't become like Nintendo Wii with barrels of useless plastic attachments.

[YoMomma @ May 23rd 2008 7:06PM]

ZOMG!!!!!!!!11111111oneoneoneone!!11!!! Applez ripping teh PSPz, sue tehm
SONYzzz!!!!!!!11111!!!!!!1111111

[ldrn @ May 23rd 2008 7:14PM]

You must be new here. Things don't work like that.

We need to call on Apple to sue Sony and to accuse Sony of ripping off Apple. :)

[YoMomma @ May 23rd 2008 8:47PM]

im not new, you must be new.

[yoyodude64 @ May 23rd 2008 8:59PM]

yo mamma is new!!!
ha see what i did there?

[Greg @ May 23rd 2008 9:27PM]

Where are all these idiots coming from? There's some kind of massive influx suddenly!

[Lazerface @ May 24th 2008 12:58AM]

Its the weekend, so all the 12-15 year olds (a.k.a idiots/insufferable know-it-alls/'I read it online so it must be true!' types) are online, flooding the world with more mis-information, trolling, and flame wars.

[Panathas17 @ May 24th 2008 4:06AM]

http://yomomma.justgotowned.com/

[Chris Kraynik @ May 24th 2008 4:35AM]

Greg: Are you serious? Where have you been? There are times when I'd rather have my gums scraped than read another Engadget comment. It says a lot when one word comments get highly ranked, and ones where people actually do research and form proper sentences get voted down. It gets even worse when it's another article about Apple, too. ._.

[YoMomma @ May 24th 2008 1:44PM]

Panathas17: i aint clicking that.

[Panathas17 @ May 28th 2008 12:53PM]

very well...

[Steffen Jobbs @ May 23rd 2008 7:15PM]

That's the shiznit. Now that's what I'm talking about. An iPhone gaming cradle. That will definitely put a hurtin' on the PSP and DS Lite platforms. Adios Nokia N-Gage. Shame they couldn't have added an extra battery inside it. I guess this will become Apple's gaming platform.

The iPhone processor and graphics beats the living daylights out of the PSP and DS so don't say this is just a slower wannabe. If you don't know the specs, don't guess:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/03/20/iphone-20-sdk-video-games-to-rival-nintendo-ds-sony-psp/

Good luck, Diamond, Instinct, Xperia and Bold. Nice attempts, but they never had a chance.

[Erasure25 @ May 23rd 2008 8:30PM]

I'm not really sure about this. So, lets say you play games and watch movies for 6 hours on a plane. Then you want to use your phone to make calls and do some "GPSing" to find a starbucks or whatever when you land -- only to find that your phone is dead from the game playing/movie watching. If the PSP goes dead, oh well. If the phone is dead, hmm that would be a problem for me.

This is why I personally don't like combining a phone with a game player/movie watcher. Not every plane has outlets and carrying spare batteries is a big pain (does the iPhone have a spare battery you can replace?). Again, not really knocking it, but I do question the iPhone's ability to get the "must have games" in its proprietary format and the very real power problems of doing everything on one device.

[swingin' dick hero @ May 23rd 2008 9:06PM]

@ Steffen: Try a name and avatar change, and then see how life treats you.

[Vidit Bhargava @ May 23rd 2008 9:14PM]

this is not even an official accessory and people are thinking of apple ripping at psp and ds...huh
do you think they are gonna develop games like warcraft on a new platform now???

[Abuzar @ May 23rd 2008 9:18PM]

Umm, the Windows Mobile phones will all have chances and they will all sell. Are you that brain washed by Apple?

Windows Mobile= More Functionality

Geez, this is coming from an iPhone user. It's not that great. Now stop sucking Steve Jobs' dick and get back to reality.

[daedric @ May 23rd 2008 10:55PM]

It's a slower wannabe, because the iPhone is a baby's toy compare to the PSP's 3D capabilities. It will pump out more polygons than an Apple user can count. The idiot who wrote the article doesn't understand the hardware being used, and the idiot Apple fanboys can't see anything wrong with the article.

[Jaimi @ May 24th 2008 12:35AM]

Sorry - the iPhone processor at 412 mhz does not "beat the living daylights" out of the PSP processor at 333 mhz. First off, the psp processor is more efficient -- It can pump out 430mips while the iPhone is pushing 450mips. An advantage of 20 mips (4.6%) does not "beat the living daylights" out of anything. However, that small advantage is completely dwarfed by the graphical capability - the psp can transform 33million polygons per second, while the iphone can only push 12 million. (that's 2.75 TIMES faster).
That's sort of like saying that a 3Ghz PC with a 8500gt is better than a 2.8ghz PC with an 8800GT. It's just not true.