It's a fact -- playing MMOs on a console often sucks for a variety of little annoying usability reasons. Among my top gripes is slow text input. The only real alternatives are using a daisy chain of USB cords to bring a PC keyboard into your living room or use the slow-as-molasses onscreen keyboard at a whopping average 6 keys per second. This is one of the reasons MMOs are a niche PC market.
We've seen weird attempts to solve this problem (bulky 3rd party hardware and awkward controllers, remember the Jaguar?) so it was a pleasant surprise to happen upon The Texter, a little dongle adapter manufactured by a Florida company exhibiting at Otronicon in Orlando this weekend. It is essentially a USB keyboard emulator -- you use the analog buttons to enter text as specified on the two guide ring stickers. We spent some time with their new 360 version and found it rather easy and unobtrusive to use for Phantasy Star Online. Alas! There is hope yet for MMOs on consoles!
Source: The Texter reinvents typing on consoles
Originally published on Mon, 15 Jan 2007 14:06:21 GMT
No comments:
Post a Comment