

Coco Controller (YC S12)  Will Turn Your iPhone Into A Gaming Powerhouse - anandkulkarni
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/14/the-yc-backed-coco-controller-will-turn-your-iphone-into-a-gaming-powerhouse/

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xxbondsxx
YC will back anything these days. Paul Graham talks about "Frighteningly
Ambitious Startup Ideas" and tackling the real hard problems, and then we get
a little controller for an iPhone. Yawn.

~~~
brandnewlow
<http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html>

"Don't be discouraged if what you produce initially is something other people
dismiss as a toy. In fact, that's a good sign. That's probably why everyone
else has been overlooking the idea. The first microcomputers were dismissed as
toys. And the first planes, and the first cars. At this point, when someone
comes to us with something that users like but that we could envision forum
trolls dismissing as a toy, it makes us especially likely to invest."

~~~
shawndumas
but this _is_ a toy...

~~~
bitwize
So was the JoyBoard.

Do you know what the JoyBoard's designers went on to create, what they were
trying to build all along?

The freaking _Amiga_.

Actually, that was a toy too. But it was a phenomenally cool toy that was
vastly more powerful than a lot of people's work computers.

~~~
ThePherocity
And look how that turned out...

Just sayin

~~~
sp332
I'm looking... <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga#Amiga_community> Looks
awesome.

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3JPLW
Why isn't there a link to Coco[1]? Or its Kickstarter page[2]?

[1]: <http://cococontroller.com/games/>

[2]: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/games/the-coco-
controlle...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/games/the-coco-controller)

------
adrianhon
It feels like a tough sell to me. We've seen quite a few iPhone gamepads of
varying quality and as far as I'm aware, none have really taken off. Even a
super simple SDK takes time to implement properly, and if it's only going to
benefit a few percent of your users at best, I don't see why devs would
bother; and if there isn't much support, gamers won't bite.

What bothers me the most is their belief that "Real Games Need Real Buttons".
On the contrary, game devs seem to be doing perfectly well without buttons on
smartphones, and customers don't seem to be complaining either, judging by the
success of touch-native games like Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, Flight Control,
Cut the Rope, etc. You might think that these aren't 'real games' but that's a
remarkably narrow-minded opinion.

Regarding the price: the $42 coco is described as being "less than stores"
which suggests a ~$50 price tag. If you got a few games for free, that'd be
OK, but otherwise it's very steep.

~~~
jwwest
I have to disagree. All of the games you just mentioned are casual titles with
little to no complexity. Action and platformer titles in particular require
more precise controls. As a long time gamer on both consoles and handhelds, I
can tell you that there's a definite improvement when I can physically feel
the buttons and build muscle memory.

Imagine as a developer having to switch to a keyboard with no tactile
response. A completely button-less piece of glass with virtual keys on it.
Your productivity would no doubt diminish greatly.

In addition, a large install base of these kinds of devices would make it
easier and more profitable for studios to port their games over to the iOS
platform, giving us even more game choices in the app store.

~~~
adrianhon
Doesn't mean they aren't fun and popular games. I don't doubt that there are
things buttons can do that touchscreens can't - I like my Assassin's Creed and
Mass Effect just as much as the next person - but they're different animals,
ones that take full advantage of big screens, complex controllers, and
comparatively long play sessions.

A lot of iPhone gaming takes place in short sessions, and I'm not about to
keep snapping a coco on and off just for five minutes at a time.

In any case, I'd prefer it if studios didn't bother porting their games over
to iOS. They're optimised for consoles, not for handhelds, and even with a
millions cocos out there, the economics probably wouldn't be that attractive
to most big devs when set alongside the hundreds of millions of people who
don't have them.

~~~
MaxGabriel
You know I was persuaded by the big screen/long play session argument the
other day, but don't the gameboy and DS seem like contradictory evidence?

------
kristaps
Very awkward placement of the analog stick - you can use either the stick or
the buttons, never both at the same time. I don't believe any of the
mainstream handhelds or console controllers have had this arrangement,
probably with good reason.

~~~
ihuman
Doesn't the Xbox 360 controller have this? On the left, there is an analog
stick (and d-pad), and on the right is an analog stick and 4 buttons.

~~~
kristaps
Yes, and this allows you to use an analog stick and the buttons at the same
time, unlike here.

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robomartin
Yet another device that interfaces through the audio port.

I think it is tragic that Apple's restrictive approach to hardware interfacing
to iOS devices is leaving developers with no options. Talk about going back a
few decades.

You can't even do a simple serial port interface on an iOS device without
going through the MFI gauntlet. Absolutely ridiculous in 2012.

~~~
stickhandle
amen

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physcab
This could actually be huge. All they need is a few high DAU accounts to help
them market this device. I totally agree with their premise that current games
are limited by the touch functionality. If they can bring the price down and
just get to a medium-sized installed base, their free app will work wonders
for small indie-sized devs. Current game devs are being priced out of the
market for advertising, but if they can innovate on the discovery end, they
could become a low-cost Xbox competitor with a much larger catalog of games.

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dfield
Congrats Connor and Colton! So excited to use this.

~~~
madamepsychosis
Second that!

~~~
qiqing
third! :P

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chucknelson
This is one of those ideas that, on the surface, seems to make sense...but I
just don't see a big enough market out there for it to gain any traction.

I don't think people are going to carry this thing around with their iPhone,
and if they _really_ care about games, they already have dedicated consoles
with way better AAA titles than iOS will have for at least a few more years.
These types of gamers may also have a 3DS.

If this somehow takes off like the Ouya did on kickstarter, it'll be
interesting to see if it sticks. Good luck, regardless of my skepticism! :)

Also - this should be linking to the kickstarter, not some techcrunch babble.

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/games/the-coco-
controlle...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/games/the-coco-controller)

------
stcredzero
I have noticed that touchscreen implementations of controls and joysticks,
while sometimes quite good, leave some things to be desired. (Meteor Blitz on
the iPhone is a good example. It's very well done, but I find it's fatiguing
for extended playing.)

Between this, the iCade, and the HDMI-out I wonder why someone isn't trying to
develop TV/living room-oriented game hardware for iOS devices?

~~~
spydertennis
airplay to your tv. it already is.

------
acoyfellow
Is it going to become a new standard for incubator/investor backed startups to
turn to Kickstarter?

Or is this specific to the gaming community?

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mkolodny
This is awesome. It opens the door to using your phone to play almost any game
you'd usually play on an xbox or playstation (or n64 in my case). I didn't
like the idea of playing first person shooters on my phone before. Or, really
anything past simple tap or slide games. This definitely does change things.

------
hesdeadjim
I make iOS games for a living, and our hands are full enough trying to handle
the fragmentation of device capabilities on iOS/Android. Adding another code
path we have to worry about testing so that we can support a market that will
be a tiny, tiny percentage of the whole? Yea, no.

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ichabodcole
This looked more interesting to me, but for whatever reason the kickstart has
been canceled. [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bladepad/bladepadthe-
det...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bladepad/bladepadthe-detachable-
iphone-gamepad)

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TheEzEzz
This essentially makes your phone into an OUYA. Awesome. I hope these guys can
capture some of the furor that fueled the OUYA kickstarter. If this takes off
it will seriously change the face of mobile gaming.

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wmat
At first glance, I thought this had something to do with the TRS-80 CoCo. What
a let down!

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pjmlp
This is great! One of the few products I've seen in HN that I think I would
really buy.

------
circa
just use joypad instead. joypadapp.com :-)

~~~
circa
oops <http://getjoypad.com/> instead.

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nsomething
does 20 ms latency cut it?

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goggles99
If this has any sign of success... A Chinese clone of it will be out on the US
market for half the announced price before these even hit the store shelves.

Bookmark it.

