Ever since the iPhone was first released, there’s been at least one mouth-breathing dweeb nasally whining that the lack of physical controls completely castrates the device as a serious gaming console. Well, dweeb, three years later and the iPhone’s only the biggest handheld gaming platform ever, but you do raise an interesting point: why hasn’t someone managed to graft a D-Pad onto an iPhone after all this time?
It’s not like people aren’t working on it, of course: the guys doing the iControlPad have been plugging away at the project for years, only to be set back on the eve of release by fears of Apple’s legal team. That appears to have been the last straw for Benjamin Morisse, who has just launched the Controller or Bust project to try to quickly crowdsource the design, production, funding and manufacturing of an iPhone controller.
“This is ridiculous,” he writes. “The iPhone was introduced over three years ago and there still isn’t a game controller peripheral available to the masses. I’ve seen several prototypes that have kicked around the internet for some time now, but nobody has stepped up to the plate and actually delivered.”
We wish him luck, but my guess is that the first guy who ever dreamed up a controller shell for the iPhone punctuated the shot by shooting an albatross. Physical controller shells for the iPhone? They’re cursed.
