Throwable Game Controllers

dptalia writes "In trolling recent patents, Barry Fox found one for a throwable game controller. This controller would be shaped like a football or a frisbee and be connected wirelessly to a console. The user could then play digital games like catch, or have a distance throwing competition. The controllers have embedded GPS, an altimeter, and an accelerometer to be able to determine the accuracy of the throws."

Re:Or you could...

[Amouth]

now i could see a use in this.. but not as a game controller..

if they could make it so that on the outside you couldn't tell the diffrence.. and the weight of the ball was exactly the same as a regulation ball.. it would be good to track ..

use it for a practice and dowload the data.. maybe be able to put timed markers to what play was when and then monitor the balls movement accross the feild.. do see mabey the avg speed of the runnrs or the normal play time for a play..

now it would only be useful for pro or big college teams.. but i could see a use for it..

How would that work?

[Psycosys]

I fail to see how having a football chaped controller will allow one to digitally play games like catch. Is the console going to catch the ball when you throw it and throw it back to you? Also, how are you going to set distance records playing a video game inside? It seems like the ball will stop when it comes into contact with one of your walls.

Laser tag Frisbee

[Animats]

Back in the late 1980s, one of the design students at Stanford came up with a Frisbee you could shoot down with a Laser Tag gun. The Frisbee had a detector for the light pattern from the gun. When triggered, it released a spring-loaded flap which made the Frisbee aerodynamically unstable, so the Frisbee would crash.

Very cute, but the laser tag fad died before this went anywhere.

They have already made these...

[X-treme-LLama]

I'd have plenty of experience throwing old school Nintendo controllers, Sega Genesis controllers, and on up the list... I do have to agree the Original Sega controllers were very very sturdy. I actually broke a Sega throwing the controller at it.. Of course the controller worked just fine on my *new* Sega.. (insert capitalist tinfoil "theories" here...)