Handkontrollsprototyp till Xbox One kunde sprida dofter

Vi gillar verkligen handkontrollen till Xbox One, trots att den inte skiljer sig sådär överdrivet mycket från den till Xbox 360 sett till funktioner.

I en intervju med VentureBeat berättar Xbox general manager for accessories Zulfi Alam att Microsoft byggde hundratals prototyper för att komma fram till den slutgiltiga modellen. Man tittade bland annat på möjligheten att sprida dofter(!) från handkontrollen och experimenterade med skärmar och tryckkänsliga ytor.

"We looked at concepts like adding displays to the controller. We looked at concepts like adding smell. We built small slugs of different types of smells that could actually come out of a controller. Like, as you walked through a jungle, you'd smell the flora."

Med en liten armbåge riktad mot Sonys Dual Shock 4 berättar Alam att man bestämde sig för att strunta i inbyggda högtalare.

"You've got a great TV with a better speaker than we could ever put in this controller, and it made more sense to [not make players look down at a display], keeping the user's attention on the TV. We really want them to be immersed in the experience that's happening in front of them. You're burning battery life like there's no tomorrow - not a great idea."

Microsoft spenderade över 100 miljoner dollar på handkontrollen som släpps tillsammans med Xbox One i stora delar av världen nu på fredag.

"I don't want to go into specifics, but it's over $100 million for sure. Between the tooling of the device, the investments we made in process technology, and the engineering work that went into it, we invested a lot to get this thing right."

"When we went in and said we wanted to do this, we didn't anticipate it was going to be tweaking a little bit of plastic here or there. That was not the intent. My management team said, ‘Either you're going to make changes, and you're going to believe in the changes you make, and you're going to make sure that they're amazing - or you're not touching this thing."