One of the biggest barriers for wide adoption of mobile games is that a cell phone directional pad is often not suited for gaming. But Zeemote Inc. is trying to solve that with its remote joystick called the Zeemote JS1.
The wireless controller, about the size of two lighters, connects to a phone via bluetooth and offers a user a full thumb joystick and two main buttons. It doesn't matter if you're left or right-handed, the thing works fine in either case.
Zeemote is offering a software developer kit that allows game designers to easily integrate the Zeemote into their games. Sega, Eidos and Fishlabs are among the publishers who have signed on to produce games that work with the Zeemote.
You can play flying or racing games with the joystick and it's apparently very easy to move around. Try doing the same thing on a regular cell phone and its frustrating and not very fulfilling.
The cool thing is you can have two players play one game simultaneously if you like. Fergus McNeill, CEO of Finblade, showed me a mobile tennis game they have that allows two players to compete. Before the Zeemote you could never really do this using just one phone. If you want you can also have one player play with a Zeemote and the other play with the directional pad.
Pricing is still up in the air though Zeemote executives say they will keep it below $US50 for a stand alone purchase. It will launch in June this year and will likely be bundled with a phone and several games.
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