Controllers For Android

It seems like only yesterday that I was saying it wouldn't be hard to get a classic videogame controller to work with a smartphone... in fact, it was yesterday. Today, here's the proof: some clever developers at Dancing Pixel Studios have an app that lets you use your Sixaxis or DualShock 3 controller with and Android phone. Yes, there's some hoops to jump through in order to make it work. As the saying goes, though, it's not how well the bear dances; the remarkable thing is that it dances at all.

This technology demonstration shows that we are on the verge of smartphones replacing consoles. Console controllers can now be used with smartphones; smartphones can output their video to a TV; this sounds like a videogame console to me. The only questions now are the hardware performance and availability of software. Sure, sure, the technology has to be made simple and seamless, but that won't take all that long. By the time smartphones are equal in processing power to current consoles (another year or two), the control and output issues should have been solved for a long time.

Within the next year, I bet we'll see a major software publisher announce plans to port a major title to smartphones, and not just a dumbed-down version, either. Once that happens, there will be a flood of such titles. The current console makers have to be ready for what happens after that...