By Michael Seo, TechCrunch – March 14, 2013 at 10:14PM
Samsung is releasing a bombardment of accessories along with their Galaxy S 4, one of which is a fully functional, boda-fide wireless gaming controller.
The oval shaped controller is a great deal smaller and lighter than the Xbox and Playstation controllers you’re used to gripping. It has a plastic build, and it’s so light it feels almost hollow. It feels cheap, to be quite frank — I’m used to the heft of regular controllers, and it was a little oft putting to use at first. You’ll find the regular assortment of joysticks and buttons here: two analog sticks, inset d-pad controls, two triggers on the right and left – everything you’d expect.
The controller connects to the Galaxy S 4 via a Bluetooth connection, and sadly, it isn’t backwards compatible with the S 3 or any other Samsung phones. It’s powered by two AAA batteries and there are strangely two separate battery compartments for each battery. The coolest part of the controller, if anything, is that there’s a receptacle on the top of the phone that can be pulled out as a dock for the S 4.
Now for the bad news: the controller is only compatible with games that are purchased from Samsung’s curated app portal. For many of us Android users that have already purchased and downloaded a plethora of games from the Google Play Store, that’s a severe disappointment. It also appears as though the S 4 can only link up with one controller at a time, so multiplayer gaming is a no-go for now.
Samsung wouldn’t tell us any details about the pricing, but we expect the controller to be released sometime in May.