Tony Hawk Ride will usher in "a next-generation of controllers"
Robomodo founder confident high price of hardware won't put off consumers eager for new gaming experiences
Tony Hawk: Ride developer Robobmodo has told GamesIndustry.biz that the peripheral designed for the game will set a new benchmark for videogame controllers.
Speaking in a interview published today, Josh Tsui revealed that the final design of the peripheral will be more consumer friendly with a white finish – inspired by Apple products – and will be worth a higher asking price than standard software.
"It's a very enhanced piece of machinery," said Tsui. "This is the most advanced peripheral on the market. It really is going to usher a next generation of controllers for games.
"The other thing is that this is an advanced piece of software and hardware put together – this is a full package – and when people see how tightly integrated it is, what a great experience it is, people will pay the right price for it."
Tsui said Activision plans to use the board for multiple new titles – not just in the extreme sports genre – and that because it's a new way of controlling games, it's essential the hardware doesn't intimidate users.
"The board we've shown so far is like the Darth Vader of skateboards, it's not the finished peripheral. We're going with a white board which is more consumer friendly. It's much more iPod-like for want of a better term.
"With the white one people inadvertently step on it, but they don't do that with the black one. That's part of the industrial design of the board, to make sure people know it's a skateboard, but it also looks friendly," he added.
Third-party skateboard peripherals have been disappointing in the past, said Tsui, as unlike the board for Tony Hawk: Ride, they have not been designed alongside the game software, so are unable to function accurately.
"One of the best decisions we did very early on was to understand that the board and the software have to be developed at the same time, you can't do one with out the other. We've seen a lot of after market products come out, that they say will work on any Tony Hawk game or snowboarding game or whatever, and they always end up being really, really bad."
The full interview with Josh Tsui, where he discusses working closely with Tony Hawk and Activision on the leading extreme sports franchise, can be read here.