This is huge. Consider that first person shooters are the largest genre in the livingroom gaming space, and then consider this controller may change how these games are made and played. Other consoles are locked into a thumbstick system for the next 10 years. How big this is will come down to how the controller works and feels, obviously, but it could be just massive.
I think the reason that using mouse is more precise is not because of its shape, but because we use at least all of our palm to use it while with controllers you only have one thumb to connect the stick with your body.
I disagree. I think the reason is more fundamental: with a mouse, you're doing a direct translation (distance in pad → distance on screen), while with a gamepad you're doing an indirect translation (distance in stick → velocity in screen).
This is harder, because you're essentially forced to calculate (in a low conscious way, of course) distance/speed to know for how much time you should turn the stick.
> I think the reason is more fundamental: with a mouse, you're doing a direct translation (distance in pad → distance on screen), while with a gamepad you're doing an indirect translation (distance in stick → velocity in screen).
There's no fundamental reason this has to be the case, of course; if the developer wanted to, they could use stick input as position rather than velocity. Conceptually, this is no different than using a high resolution trackball.
You're correct. I guess this is why I speculate that the new trackpads uncomfortable with action/platforming games, since in those games, you move your character and dictate their speed (velocity plus direction), not pointing their position.
We'll see of course, and since the controller will be "hackable" I think there will be many way to use the controller for many types of games.
This isn't true. With a mouse you have acceleration settings that greatly change how distance works. Flick your mouse up quick vs slowly move it and measure how much distance you've moved your mouse relative to where your mouse moved to on the screen.
For any high-dpi mouse this is not useful and not used even in ordinary windows/mac mode (is it really turned on by default? ugh..); and I've never seen it used in games.
If that were the case, one would expect that the trackball only would be as accurate as the controller and less accurate than the mouse. However, my anecdotal experience is that the trackball is as accurate, if not more so, than the mouse, despite only using the thumb.
My suspicion is that the difference is more of a calculus problem. Moving my thumb on the trackball by a given amount changes my position by a proportional amount. On the other hand, for most games, moving my thumb on the stick by a given amount changes my velocity by a proportional amount. To put it differently, if I'm aimed at a stationary target with my trackball, I remain aimed until as long as I don't move my thumb. With a stick, if I'm aimed at a stationary target and don't move my thumb, I'll keep turning at a constant rate.
I don't see that happening, unless Sony and Microsoft follow suit with similar controllers, or this one is somehow made compatible with those systems.
When it comes to market share, those systems are still top. AAA developers especially will be making games geared towards them - they won't shift the way they make a game for one new entry. They will still make it standard: console-style for the thumbstick, and PC port for keyboard+mouse.
