• From various motion control devices to
a plank of wood attached to a controller,
we count 15 of the least useful gaming peripherals
ever made.
15 – Xbox 360- SpeakerCom,
• There was this weird phenomenon on the
360 voice chat where if you set voice communication
to go through your TV’s speakers all you
could hear was a mumbled garbage that can
only be likened to a series of farts echoing
through a tin pipe.
• Well this device was supposed to fix that
problem, it plugged into your controller and
played the voice over a small speaker, as
well as having an external mic and a set of
crappy ear buds that fit more comfortably
up your nose than in your ears.
• The main problem with it was that the
external micrecorded the audio playing from
the speaker causing a feedback loop, thus
rendering the main function of the device
as useful as a Mad Catz controller covered
in Cheeto dust.
14 –Atari 2600 - Stick Station,
• The Atari joystick tended togive you cramps
if you played it for too long, so a company
named Skystation released a peripheral that
tried to fix this issue in a way so awkward
that it makes the Xbox Duke controller look
like the GBA micro.
• They didn’t make a more ergonomic controller;
instead they implanted the joystick into a
slab of wood so big that it required you to
put it on a coffee table, however, most people
used the device under a table to keep it from
wobbling.
• Of course they probably didn’t realise
that the Atari joystick could have been put
on a coffee table by itself quite easily and
kept there with some tape or Blu-Tac with
pretty much the same result,but I guess that
wouldn’t leave you with a device that doubles
as a doorstop.
13 –Wii - Boxing Gloves,
• Ever accidentally clocked someone in the
fact whilst playing a Wii boxing game?
If so these gloves have been tailor made to
soften the blow, quite literally, since all
they are are boxing gloves with a hole cut
in them so that a wiimote and nun-chuck would
fit in.
• The manufacturers of the gloves must not
own a Wii because there’s no window for
the IR sensors, which dramatically reduces
the accuracy of the motion controls, but on
the plus side the added frustration behind
this will give you the motivation to go and
box for real.
• The other issue is that you can’t use
any of the buttons, thus locking you out of
any attack apart from the default one; luckily
all of these issues can be fixed with a pair
of scissors but you’re probably better off
saving your $20 and spending it on boxing
classes.
12 -Gameboy – Printer,
• There was a decent amount of fun to be
had with the Gameboy camera and it makes sense
that you’d want to print out the weird photos
that you took, but it doesn’t make any sense
whenthe printed copy is about a tenth of the
qualityof your average big foot picture.
• To make matters worse the printer runs
on six AA batteries and requires thermal paper
that gives you one colour per type of paper.
• This device seemed to have entertained
someone, because Neil Young decided to use
a printout as one of his album covers and
the results are simply stunning, but luckily
your best friend ‘imagination’ will help
fill in the blanks.
11 –PlayStation -Jogcon,
• Back when 3D gaming was coming into its
own and analogue sticks were becoming big
Namco decided to ‘revolutionise’ racing
controls with a turning wheel attached to
a controller.
• However, most people who wanted a better
racing experience simply bought a racing wheel
with force feedback, a stick and pedals, none
of which were featured in the Jogcon.
• Naming devices can’t be easy but it
seems clear Namco just put two random syllables
and called it day, I mean, unless they originally
wanted you to jog on a treadmill whilst controlling
the game.
10 –Sega Mega Drive - Action Chair,
• Have you ever wanted to control a game
by leaning in your chair?
No?
Me neither, but it seems that Sega thought
that someone wanted this since they made a
weird and uncomfortable looking peripheral
that did just that.
• This device was so unpopular that it never
made it past the product testing stage since
it’s rarer than a good modern Rareware game.
• The way it works is that the chair and
the obtrusive metal sticking out was attached
to a giant joystick at the base; it’s hard
to imagine it not breaking whenever someone
heavier than your average 13 year old tries
to use it.
9 –NES - Roll & Rocker,
• Apparently LJN Toys thought that NES games
were too easy because here comes yet another
poorly-made device designed to replace your
directional movement.
• For some weird reason it never caught
on, it could be due to the fact that people
don’t want to stand on a balance board to
control a game, oh wait, never mind; maybe
they should have released some fitness games
to go with it.
• As if anyone had anyone doubts, this remains
proof that gaming companies were always obsessed
with replacing the controller with actual
body movement.
8 –NES - Power Glove,
• Flexing your hand has never yielded such
lacklustre results, the power glove worked
by moving your gloved hand in various ways
to control what happened on the screen.
• Shockingly enough, the Power Glove was
considered a critical failure and the games
released for it did even worse.
• Maybe if they released a virtual pet patter
or a jacking off game it would have done better,
but we’ll never know.
7 –PS2 - Katana Soul Controller,
• The Katana Soul controller is basically
the same thing as a wiimote except a lot worse
thanks to the awkwardly placed buttons on
the controller, the poorly implemented motion
controls and the fact that you couldn’t
even use it for ritual suicide when you realised
you wasted $190 on it.
• The general idea is that youswing the
controller in order to get your character
to attack in Onimusha 3, however, no matter
which way you swing your weapon your character
will attack just the same way and sometimes
the motion controls simply wouldn’t work.
• The item was originally intended as a
collector’s item, but it would have sold
a lot more if it actually looked like a sword
instead of a video game themed vibrator.
6 –PC - AlphaGrip AG-5,
• People sometimes wish that there were
more buttons on a controller to allow more
actions to be performed, but I don’t think
anyone ever actually wanted a controller that
has multiple buttons for each of your ten
fingers.
• The AlphaGrip AG-5 is designed to be a
keyboard replacement as well as a gaming peripheral
and while some people have managed to get
used to using it as a keyboard very few have
utilised all six million of its buttons in
a video game, except perhaps typing of the
dead.
• You’d think that with the googolplex
of buttons they would have added some analogue
sticks to help promote the video game side
of things, but nope, instead they added a
track ball which is possibly the worst device
to use in a video game that requires any level
of precision.
5 –Sega Mega Drive - Activator,
• The first attempt at full body mapping
in a video game console, or at least that’s
what the advertising tried to make you believe,
in reality it was less effective at mapping
your body movements than an eighty year old
with cataracts watching you and pressing the
buttons in accordance to your movements.
• There was a sensor for each of the eightinputs
on the Mega Drive, so if you waved your hand
above the ‘C’ sensor it would be the same
as pressing the C button, as long as your
ceiling was perfectly flat, opaque, had no
fan on it and didn’t look at the activator
in the wrong way.
• On top of everything else you couldn’t
activate multiple buttons at once, so if you
wanted to move diagonally you were shit out
of luck.
4 –GBA - e-Reader,
• The e-Reader was essentially a QR code
reader before they really took off and it
was a cool idea at the time since it gave
you the ability to play NES games, add levels
to Super Mario Advance and a couple of other
things.
• While it was considered successful in
Japan it didn’t do nearly as well in the
rest of the world this was probably because
in order to add items to Mario you needed
two GBAs and a link cable, which isn’t exactly
portable or financially viable for most people.
• Apart from the NES and Game & Watch games
there was only support for 4 different games,
meaning the money spent on it was mostly wasted.
3 -Wii - Football,
• This is easily the dumbest idea ever thought
up by Nintendo, yes that includes the cancelled
Vitality Sensor and the Virtual Boy that required
you to take a break every fifteen minutes
to prevent possible blindness.
• Despite the wrist strap and the Nerf material
it’s still a bad idea to make a ball that
needs to be in front of a TV and not be thrown.
• The use of this peripheral can only end
in so many ways, funnily enough each of those
ways ends in either a broken screen or a black
eye for some unfortunate passer-by.
2 -Xbox –HD DVD player,
• This add-on isn’t intrinsically flawed
in any way whatsoever, what brought it down
was the fact that HD DVDs had less support
than the Betamax.
• Possibly the biggest downfall of the HD
DVD was that it had 20GB less storage than
the Blu-ray as well as the fact that HD DVD
is quite a bit harder to say than Blu-ray.
• The only positive side to the HD DVD player
was that Microsoft decided to make it an optional
add-on to the system instead of forcing the
consumer to pay more for the ability to participate
in a dead format.
1 –PS2 - Rez Trance Vibrator
• It’s a puck, small and black, attached
to the PS2 via a USB port and was designed
as an additional device to the game Rez where
it vibrated to the beat of the music.
• I don’t know about you but the vibration
of a controller doesn’t exactly sound melodic
in any way shape or form and the trance vibrator
was even louder.
Although this device did get some use by someone
to enhance the experience of the game, it
was not in the way it was designed, at least
one girl put it between her legs and used
it as a masturbatory aid despite the pleas
from the developer to be wholesome.
