Way back in 1983, Atari promised to revolutionize game controls with a device they called the Atari Mindlink. Prototypes were built and tested, running on modified versions of Pong and Breakout, but ultimately it was canned when Atari changed ownership. A similar idea has been brought back to life with Ars Electronica’s research project BrainBattle. It pits two players against each other using some classic arcade games (not exactly originals of course), Pong, Space Invaders and Pac-Man. It looks like they still have a ways to go in getting these devices to control something smoothly but arcade-style games are certainly the best kinds of test-beds for such a device. Maybe one day you will find an arcade game that uses such devices to control the action but that is probably still a long time from becoming a reality.
Since we’re on the subject of gray areas when it comes to arcade matters, I might as well point this out too. IcePagoda on our forums brought it up a few days ago, it’s called Pinball Arcade, a new video pinball program by Farsight Studios and it’s coming to: “iPhone, iPad, Android, Xbox360, PlayStation3, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS”. It will come out in 2012 and feature several iconic pinball tables such as Tales of the Arabian Nights, Theatre of Magic, Ripley’s Believe it or Not and more. Now we’ve seen video pinball in arcades before so I wonder if someone would be bold enough to bring this to coin-op at some point. Perhaps with some modification it could work out similar to the UltraPin, just with the new software.
