Oh boy, Sharp’s diving into VR haptics now. Yeah, they’ve got this prototype coming out in Japan. The thing is supposed to mimic touch or something, all while keeping the usual button setup. Seems like a lot, huh?
So, they say—Sharp, that is—that these controllers have bits on the fingertips that can make you feel different textures. Like, if it’s smooth or rough or whatever. Blow your mind if it actually works. Maybe it’s not like touching real stuff just yet, but by tweaking things—vibes or parameters (not sure exactly)—they’ve gotten a bunch of different feels out of it. Kind of like messing with your TV remote; sometimes it works, sometimes it’s just static.
And oh, they aren’t hogging it for themselves until it’s perfect, nope. Sharp wants to get feedback from folks using it. Probably a smart move, right? Because who really ever gets things perfect on the first try?
Now, there’s a picture floating around—nothing fancy, just the render. You know how companies show you shiny stuff that isn’t quite the real deal yet? Classic move. Anyhow, these controllers—you get them in a pair, left and right. But don’t think they can track every single finger move like gloves do. Nope, no force feedback, either. They’re not that advanced just yet.
And there’s a bit about “standard sticks and buttons” like regular controllers. But how they’ll be tracked? Total mystery! They talk about “high market share” tracking too. Whatever that means.
Right now, they’re just demo-ing these things, so who even knows if or when they’ll be for sale? At least in Japan, they’re trying to get these out there for people to try. Pre-registrations are already closed, and wow, they priced them at ¥100,000—about 680 USD if you’re curious. But careful! They warn this whole thing might get canned before it’s even a thing.
And Sharp isn’t a newbie in the whole XR space. Turns out they used to be top dogs supplying screens for Meta Quest 2, if you can believe it. Just last year, they teamed up with NTT Docomo to roll out some AR glasses called MiRZA. So yeah, they’ve got some chops in this arena—or at least, attempting to have!
