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60beat Gamepad for iOS Offers Dual Analog Joysticks

Thursday December 29, 2011 5:56 am PST by Arnold Kim

There's been quite a few attempts at creating a physical game controller for the iPhone. The most successful of which has probably been the ThinkGeek iCade.

Despite a few other promising starts, it seems the main hurdle has been Apple allowing unfettered access between said game controllers and the iOS devices themselves. As a result, most game controllers have relied on emulating a Bluetooth keyboard to interface with the iPhone or iPad. While it works well enough for digital controls such as the iCade, full analog stick control has remained elusive.

A company called 60beat is now offering their solution which does offer dual analog sticks as well as a number of other standard directional controls and buttons. The 60beat GamePad connects through the headphone jack of your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to accomplish this task:


Games have to be programmed to support the new device, of course. At present only 2 games support the 60beat GamePad, but a "full collection" of supported games are said to be added in February 2012. The GamePad is priced at $49.99 with supported games sold separately.
[ 44 comments ]

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xFenixKnightx
Posted: 21 weeks ago
Make it support the most popular iOS games and I'll but it.

Real Racing 2
Modern Combat
COD Zombies
Nova games
GTA

Why doesnt Apple just make theyre own knock off of an Xbox 360 pad, make it bluetooth and make all game devs program the controller into their games? I'd be in Heaven and they'd make a ton!

iGamePad FTW! :apple:
Rating: 14 Positives / 1 Negatives
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APlotdevice
Posted: 21 weeks ago

Not interesting for me...

It has no sense for me, we have a revolutionary devices with innovative and versatile control methods (gyro, touch) and seems that some people want to step back and build this old control methods! :confused:


Because those "innovative and versatile" controls are a rather lousy substitute in certain genres. I mean like I've yet to find a virtual d-pad that is as responsive as a physical one for platforming games. And it is really hard to multitask in a FPS game without shoulder buttons.
Rating: 8 Positives / 0 Negatives
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APlotdevice
Posted: 21 weeks ago





You buy an adapter that allows 2 3.5mm head phone jacks plug in to 1. They cost like £2 lol


Actually according to the product page it comes with an audio splitter.
Rating: 7 Positives / 0 Negatives
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nedman
Posted: 21 weeks ago

so, how do i use my headset and use this product at the same time?


You buy an adapter that allows 2 3.5mm head phone jacks plug in to 1. They cost like £2 lol
Rating: 7 Positives / 0 Negatives
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winks360
Posted: 21 weeks ago
Does this mute games, being plugged into the headphone jack?

If so this product is a dud.
Rating: 8 Positives / 1 Negatives
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r-m
Posted: 21 weeks ago
I wonder how "analogue" the sticks are though.
When he pushed the right stick on the demo at the end, it seemed to be all or nothing. Was a bad demonstration to show off the stick, it needed to be slowly pushed and moved around the edge, to show how variable it is.
Rating: 7 Positives / 1 Negatives
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Yvan256
Posted: 21 weeks ago

Not interesting for me...

It has no sense for me, we have a revolutionary devices with innovative and versatile control methods (gyro, touch) and seems that some people want to step back and build this old control methods! :confused:


It makes perfect sense. All games have their "perfect" controlling methods.

I've found that games such as Galcon are best played with a touch interface and racing games are pretty good when you use gyroscopes.

However, platformers like Mega Man and shooters like Ikaruga are best played with a gamepad and first-person shooters like Quake, Unreal Tournament and others are best played with either a keyboard and mouse or a setup similar to the Wiimote and nunchuck, i.e. pointing device to aim, physical controls to move.

There's a reason why games need to simulate a gamepad on their screen. It's because they need one.

Apple should just open up Bluetooth for controllers only, if it's for security reasons. I don't know if it's like USB HID, but there must be a way to limit connectivity to controllers.
Rating: 4 Positives / 0 Negatives
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Consultant
Posted: 21 weeks ago



Does this mute games, being plugged into the headphone jack?

If so this product is a dud.


Typically it would still have headphone out, and the device uses microphone for input.
Rating: 4 Positives / 0 Negatives
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APlotdevice
Posted: 21 weeks ago

Dude don't be obtuse, usb can carry audio and video data. It's retarded to require dedicated pins for on-device digital to analog conversion (processing that Apple does a piss poor job of btw) when the the 30-pin analog is only needed in certain(read rare) situations.
One minimal USB port would be adequate. Then third-party accessories could handle the audio and video processing themselves.


USB can carry data. Only data. Even with a digital output like HDMI the adapter would need additional hardware to convert the data into a usable signal.

Moreover you completely ignored my point about USB hosts and slaves. A slave is needed to plug the device into a computer. A host is needed to attach accessories. You can't have both in the same standard USB port. Oh, and the dock connector also draws a lot more power than a USB slave can. Which is why the iPad charges much faster from its wall adapter.

I'm not even going to get into all the docks out there which would no longer be supported...
Rating: 3 Positives / 0 Negatives
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kinderdm
Posted: 21 weeks ago

Something like this needs to happen. I don't know if this will finally be the product to catch on, but I mostly like what I see.

Real issue here is adoption. How is a non-Apple peripheral going to gain much support from developers?


Hopefully stuff like this will catch on because a lot of people, like myself, wont buy the games unless there is a good control method like this. Ive held off buying a lot of games, even at discounted prices, because i have no desire to try to use an emulated control stick on screen. Touch controls work best for some games but other games like FPS's just need to have more buttons and a physical keypad or joystick. Until apple can figure this out, IOS will never be anything more than fun time waster for me when it comes to games. Its sad too because it really has the potential to be a serious gaming platform if they could work out a good control scheme like every console out there has had to do in order to be successful.
Rating: 3 Positives / 0 Negatives

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