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The Texter reinvents typing on consoles photo

It's a fact -- playing MMOs on a console often sucks for a variety of little annoying usability reasons. Among my top gripes is slow text input. The only real alternatives are using a daisy chain of USB cords to bring a PC keyboard into your living room or use the slow-as-molasses onscreen keyboard at a whopping average 6 keys per second. This is one of the reasons MMOs are a niche PC market.

We've seen weird attempts to solve this problem (bulky 3rd party hardware and awkward controllers, remember the Jaguar?) so it was a pleasant surprise to happen upon The Texter, a little dongle adapter manufactured by a Florida company exhibiting at Otronicon in Orlando this weekend. It is essentially a USB keyboard emulator -- you use the analog buttons to enter text as specified on the two guide ring stickers. We spent some time with their new 360 version and found  it rather easy and unobtrusive to use for Phantasy Star Online. Alas! There is hope yet for MMOs on consoles!

The Texter is a tiny dongle that sits next to your console and comes with two pardonably ugly rainbow stickers for your existing joysticks. These stickers serve as a letter index, so the letter A would be entered by pressing the left analog towards pink and the right analog towards the letter A (left). To go in and out of text input mode, simply press the home button on the controller. We played the 360 version on Phantasy Star Universe and it was simple stupid to use; this system actually works without being intrusive at all and requires a minimal learning curve. The rep at the booth averaged 17 words per second; faster than most non-touch typists and we can presume that once you memorize the commands you can blaze through it without looking at the rainbows in your hands.



The solution is so simple and elegant; I feel many developers will be punching themselves in the face when they learn about it. Hopefully the company has done some patent work to protect itself, as I imagine implementing this input method in a game with in-game software would be rather simple to implement. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if something similar to this method become the industry standard for text input on consoles the near future.

The only thing missing is my other gripe with MMOs on consoles -- no keyboard macro support. While this is a great step towards the right direction, it only solves half the problem. The Texter sells for 20-30 bucks depending on the console. Want one?  Grab it on Amazon.


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12 comments | showing # 1 to 12
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Snaileb 's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/15/2007 14:07
Snaileb
Hey uh.. I heard about this a month ago, but I thought it was a mod.

I CAN BUY IT NOW? Friggin sw33t.
heix's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/15/2007 14:08
heix
I could get used to that... this new typing interface could very well be the next best thing for MMOs on the console. But will it replace other MMOs on the pc? I doubt.
Snaileb 's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/15/2007 14:26
Snaileb
spam.
Justice's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/15/2007 15:05
Justice
It's seems cool, I like how you aim to the white dot you want first and then select the letters.

But the colours are plain (NO RED OR DARKER BLUE?)
Justice's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/15/2007 15:06
Justice
ActuallyI was wrong about how it works but just got it.

Sounds cool
Dexter345's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/15/2007 16:01
Dexter345
Seventeen words per minute, I think you mean.

This looks pretty cool. I imagine if one worked at it enough, he could do this almost as well as some people touch-type.
Namelessted's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/15/2007 17:14
Namelessted
This might be the dumbest thing in the world. Just plug in a fucking keyboard. Learning to use that could take a lot of hours of fucking around with it.
zizzy's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/15/2007 17:28
zizzy
This is pretty cool, it's sort of like how you enter letters in Splinter Cell, which is good.
ranzchic's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/15/2007 19:12
ranzchic
Or you could use a Wii and an onscreen keyboard. This looks overly complex to me.
Remz's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/15/2007 20:28
Remz
How is this complex? you just flick the stick towards a letter and the corresponding color and away you go, doesn't sound too hard to me, unless you're a semi blind chimp of some sort.
tazarthayoot's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/16/2007 00:24
tazarthayoot
If you can figure out T9 on a cell phone this should be a breeze.
GiomBee's Avatar - Comment posted on 01/16/2007 08:36
GiomBee
17 words per SECOND ? Is the guy a mutant or something ? I need to see this in video, I just can't believe it.
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