:D Gaming controller with touchpad ... HELLO?!

[-Slacker-]

I think it's strange that nobody made this yet (or at least I haven't heard of anything like that - strictly as a peripheral), but wouldn't people want to buy a dual or single analog controller that also had a touchpad?

I see sony is on the right track with this concept, looking at their PS Vita and it's under-belly touchpad, but it blows my mind that nobody else tried to make one as a pure peripheral, which would be a lot cheaper, pretty much guaranteed to work and would be a lot more ergonomic.

The advantages for a device like this are obvious - not only would it feature a much more accurate camera panning, but it would basically have all the functionality of a mouse; Also the user wouldn't have to be met with the inconvenience of lifting his/her finger off the a/b/x/y buttons to fiddle with the right analog stick anymore.

It's almost annoying how such a cool product does not exist.

 

[Doom 4d]

Particularly relating to panning and so on, the screen size would have to be enormous or the sensitivity would have to be obnoxiously high to make it functional (unless you were to make it a hold right, panning function at which point why even bother). Not mocking, but I can't think of any scenario where this wouldn't be worse than just regular analog sticks, which themselves are considerably worse than mouse and keyboard.

 

[-Slacker-]

But the touch pad would easily span as far as you can move your index/middle finger back and forth on the horizontal, and the vertical area would be enough too since vertical panning isn't as important. It would be as big as a laptop touch pad, pretty much (at least horizontally).

I don't know what a hold right is ... you mean operating the touchpad with your right hand's fingers or?...

 

[Doom 4d]

But the touch pad would easily span as far as you can move your index/middle finger back and forth on the horizontal, and the vertical area would be enough too since vertical panning isn't as important. It would be as big as a laptop touch pad, pretty much (at least horizontally).

I don't know what a hold right is ... you mean operating the touchpad with your right hand's fingers or?...

Well what I mean is, to translate 360 degrees of movement into a touchpad at a playable sensitivity, the touchpad would have to be huge unless you had a feature where you panned right to the edge of the touchpad and kept your finger there and it kept scrolling (similar to scrolling around the map with your mouse in an RTS). But I can't imagine either way being remotely useful, let alone an improvement on the current standard.

Then again, I'd like to see them start making controllers with better than subpar d-pads again.