There has been much gnashing of teeth in the iOS gaming community about Apple's decision to require all Apple TV games support the built-in trackpad remote. Many gamers and developers feel that game makers should be allowed to make their games require a third-party MFi controller in order to be played. These people (correctly) feel that a large number of console-style games will play so terribly with Apple's remote control that not being able to play at all is superior to a poor control experience.
These folks aren't wrong in this point, but they are wrong in the belief that allowing developers to require MFi controllers at this time is the solution to the problem.
Apple's decision to launch the new Apple TV is 2 different bundles, neither of which include an MFi controller in the box, immediately relegates MFi controllers on the Apple TV to an extreme niche. Smaller even than the iPhone / iPad demographic.
Many of us were hoping that an app playing Apple TV update would be Apple's change to make a big move into the gaming market. Apple did not do this. The new Apple TV is not a gaming box. The new Apple TV is a refinement of the old Apple TV, but now it also happens to play games. Apple is not marketing it to gamers, it's marketing it to average people.
The fact of the matter is, to average people, most games will play perfectly fine with the Apple TV Remote, making this issue almost non-existant. Most of the games on this list do NOT make full use of a console-style controller. Most use one analog stick for movement and a couple of buttons for controls – an input scheme that will work perfectly well on the Apple TV Remote.
But what about the handfull of more complicated games? The Modern Warfares, the Grand Theft Autos, the MOBAs – how can games with complex inputs possibly be made to work on the Apple TV Remote? Can they be made to work as well as a console? The answer is no, but they don't have to.
Bad Controls Don’t Matter
If the iPhone has taught us anything, it's that average people don't actually care how badly a game controls. The proliferance of shooters and complex console ports to iOS – many of which "real gamers" would deem unplayable on a touchscreen – should tell you as much. The are made playable (sometimes just barely) because crafty developers are able to overcome the obvious control limitations.
Lets take shooting games. On a real MFi game controller, you use a minimum of three inputs at the same time: left analog to move, right analog to look around, right trigger to shoot. You'll periodically use a fourth input to stab, throw a grenade, zoom in, crouch, activate a switch, etc.
On a touchscreen, this control sceme is untenable. People only have 2 thumbs, and they can't move, look, and shoot at the same time with virtual sticks and virtual buttons, let alone use other commands. So developers implemented other options:
Some allow you to use the gyroscope and accelerometer to look, freeing up left thumb to move and right to shoot
Some combined looking and shooting, having the gun automatically fire when you look directly at an enemy
Specialized attacks can be mapped to a shake – it's satisfying stabbing an enemy by shaking your phone at him
Action buttons can be made context-sensitive. No need to map "use" to the Y button when it can just replace the "shoot" button when you aim at a switch
Superflous functionality can be removed entirely. Do most gamers really need to crouch?
Call of Duty veterns might look at this and wince. But again, Apple isn't targeting them. Average gamers just want to run around a battlefield shooting stuff, and these controls allow that. If you're a pro gamer who wants more, Apple has a solution: buy an MFi controller.
Now lets see how a shooter could work with the Apple TV Remote:
Movement can be handled with the touchpad. It'll feel very similar to moving on a touchscreen.
Looking can be handled with the gyroscope in the remote. Judicious use of auto-locking will allow casual gamers to play
Shooting can be mapped to one of the two face buttons
Actions can be mapped to voice input. Yell "Grenade!" to throw a grenade. Say "time to sneak" and your character crouches and moves slowly. Say "reloading" to force-reload your weapon.
Again, pro gamers will bristle at this list. But again, Apple has a solution: buy an MFi controller.
How would GTA work on the Apple TV Remote? Well…
Move with the touchpad, and the camera turns when your character does
Shoot with a button. Auto-lock on the nearest enemy
Carjacking replaces shooting when directly next to a car and looking at the door
Use voice to switch weapon on ground, switch radio station in a car
Remove jumping and crouching entirely
Tilt controls for flying vehicles, wheelies, and other side commands
You get the idea. No, the experience isn't perfect. But it also isn't so bad that you'd need to completely block off the remote from working in the first place.
The Reality of The New Apple TV
Let's call the new Apple TV what it actually is for most people: a $150 media consumption box. This is not the new iPhone – it isn't going to sell hundreds of millions of units in a year. It'll probably sell closer to 5 million.
Many – possibly most – of those 5 million customers will not be gamers. They'll be buying a video box they can control Siri with. When these customers open up the App Store, Apple wants to sell them apps. If these people see a bunch of games that require a third-party controller they don't own, these people will simply not download those apps. Doesn't matter how cool the game is, doesn't matter how cheep the controller is.
Their kids might download those apps, though. It's a lot easier to talk mom and dad into spending $5 on copy of Minecraft than it is to talk them into spending $55 on Minecraft and a controller. However, if the kid's playing Minecraft all the time and the remote is constantly going missing and running out of power, suddenly that controller the kid's been begging for seems like a lot easier sale.
But what about the games that will never be ported?
The last arguement for allowing developers to require MFi controllers goes like this: big-time console developers might port their games to the Apple TV if it was as simple as porting the code over, then copying over the same control scheme they used on the Xbox / PlayStation and requiring customers own a controller. However, these developers won't port it if they have to also figure out how to make it work on the Apple TV Remote.
Sounds good in theory, but the fact is, these games were never getting ported over any time soon. Wasn't going to happen, even with a "controller required" option.
If developers are going to spend the time and energy to port a game to the iOS codebase, they're going to aim for the target with 1 billion users: iPhones and iPads. The Apple TV, with it's paltry userbase, will be a distant second.
Coding is the hard part, slapping a (possibly terrible) input method together is easy. If a big-name console game is coming to iOS, it's developers are going to spend the time to make it work on a touchscreen and accelerometer. If they do that, it's easy to make it work on the Apple TV remote.
There will be no situation, ever, when a developer spends the time porting a game to iOS, then decides to ignore the billion-strong iPhone market and instead target only the percentage of Apple TV customers who own MFi controllers. Never. If a developer did that, they would be insane.
The Future
Apple is right to avoid fragmenting the Apple TV user base right now. The number of early adopters isn't going to be huge, and the last thing Apple needs is early customers telling their friends to avoid buying an Apple TV because "the good games need an extra controller".
This would be a bad situation. But more than that, it would be a distinctly "un-Apple" situation. Apple wants apps to "just work". Apps that are segregated behind a $50 paywall don't "just work".
In the future, who knows? In a few years, the Apple TV will be cheaper, the hardware will more powerful, the userbase will be bigger, and Apple could potentially starts selling an Apple TV with an MFi controller in the box. In this world, with 100 million Apple TVs in homes around the world, it might make sense for Activision to bring Call of Duty to the Apple TV and require a real game controller. But on launch day? Forget it.
I'm the biggest MFi controller proponent out there, but it just doesn't make sense for any games to require them right now.
This narrative on TouchArcade from a major free-to-play developer is about as horrifying as you’d fear.
Read it. Then delete your Facebook account and uninstall anything that ever asked you to “like” it. Shit like this is why I advocate ad blocking. Which you should totally do now that iOS 9 is out.
I disagree with one thing, and only one thing: asking gamers to support premium apps isn’t enough. Gamers are up against an army of truly terrible people who are spending millions of dollars learning how to exploit their weakness. APPLE is the one who should be protecting users. Apple should ban apps that do this garbage from the store. Apple should publicly shame developers. Apple should threaten to ban the Facebook app unless it makes policy changes in how it farms data.
iOS 9 comes out today, and I wanted to assemble a list of apps designed to take advantage of all its new features.
Most of the benefits of iOS 9 can only be realized when apps are submitted to take advantage of all the new features. Split screen, picture-in-picture, dynamic scaling, etc. all require developers to recompile their apps for iOS 9.
Below is a partial list of updated apps. As more and more apps hit the store with iOS 9 specific features, I’ll update the list with some of the highlights. The list will get unmanageable soon, of course, but I’ll keep it updated for the near future.
Know of an app with iOS 9 specific features that I haven’t added to the list? Drop by the forum and post about it! I’m especially interested in iPad apps with split-screen multitasking – once you get used to that, it’s painful to go back to swiping through full-screen apps.
Well that was fast. Looks like the sale is over. $24.99 still isn’t a bad price, though.
Looks like Amazon is cleaning out the warehouse. The MOGA Ace Power – the first MFi controller ever released – is currently on sale for $16.99 right now, while supplies last.
No, this is not the best controller in the world. It’s cheap feeling, it only works with 4-inch devices, and you can’t play games on it while it’s charging. But still, for $16.99… if you have a compatible device, I’d recommend picking this one up while you can.
If you’re a developer, this is BY FAR the cheapest way to get a test controller. Think about it like this – you’re going to get at least $17 worth of sales from controller-obsessed gamers if you add support now.
Heck, throw a $8.99 Logitech PowerShell into the cart while you’re at it. No clue if we’ll ever see another “Standard” layout MFi controller any time soon, but the Logitech PowerShell is still one of the most portable options available for owners of 4-inch iPhones and iPod Touches.
Real Racing may have turned into freemium garbage, but it looks like another realistic racer is set to take its place. Developer Eden Games is bringing GT Spirit, a “realistic” racing simulator, to the Apple TV as a launch title. It will be coming to iOS a few months later, presumably with controller support in tow.
From the developers:
GT Spirit will let you explore breathtaking settings, while competing with your friends through unlimited Daily Events and Championships.
GT Spirit is much more than a quick adrenaline rush, it is an authentic world of cars. We aim to deliver a realistic driving experience, with fully simulated engines, powertrains, suspensions and aerodynamics. If you’re a petrol-head like us, you’ll be happy to enjoy never-seen-before car details including engines and interiors in full HD!
We are pretty proud that GT Spirit will be a launch title for the brand new Apple TV, as announced during Apple Keynote on September 9 2015. Coming in hot this October!
[…] GT Spirit will feature truckloads of cool cars under license from the best manufacturers in the world. […] Need an edge on your competitors? Collect, upgrade and fully customize the most gorgeous exotic cars.
Sounds good! I’ve always been more of an arcade racer fan myself, but I’m glad we’ll be seeing ANY racing game this impressive as a launch title.
Great news: the new iPhone 6S series is set to get a major RAM upgrade. The previous version had 1GB, the new one gets double the fun: 2GB!
The only other iOS device with that much RAM is the iPad Air 2. After using one of these as my primary computer for the past year, I can vouch for the difference: 2GB of RAM is a huge upgrade. Webpages don’t close as much, apps don’t crash as much. Great stuff.
Even bigger, the new 13-inch iPad Pro is set to receive even more RAM: 4GB, according to Adobe. This massive boost in RAM might be overkill, but hey, after years of the iPad being RAM starved, overkill is a welcome change of pace.
I strongly recommend reading the original article, but here are a few highlights:
GamesBeat: […] What were some of the challenges you faced when designing with Apple?
Rabbani: […] The ergonomics are absolutely critical. You know, unlike mobile gaming, where youâre playing for ten to fifteen minutes and then moving on, when youâre playing in your living room on your TV youâre going to play for several hours.
[…] The amount of pressure on the triggers has to be perfect. If the pressure is too light, youâll accidentally trigger it. If the pressure is too heavy, it is going to fatigue your fingers.
Sounds like they’ve learned their lesson! The triggers on the Stratus XL were so sensitive that they were basically unusable. Seems like SteelSeries has corrected this design flaw for the Nimbus.
GamesBeat: So with all this attention to detail, what is your take on the wireless aspect? I know a lot of professional players donât want to touch wireless. They want to go straight wired. That seems like a pretty big hurdle to get over with this controller.
Rabbani: So for us, the question was, âHow do you have the most lag-free experience?â Obviously, the whole reason you donât want to use a wireless controller is because you donât want lag.
So the only way for us to do that was to use a solution that used the next generation of Bluetooth 4.0 into the mix. That has greatly improved the [capability] of having a lag free experience.
And not only is the wireless protocol that you use critical, but you have to have great processing power in the product itself. So that when the product sees a signal [generated by user input], it immediately sees them and doesnât require the PC or game machine to process the inputs for it.
Very cool. Building a processor directly into the controller really does cut down lag. More than that, it can allow advanced features like on-board control remapping, pressure customization, combos. No clue if the Nimbus will allow any of that, but hey, at least we’ll get less lag.
GamesBeat: So when you guys first started up the Nimbus project, what sort of gamepads ⦠or what sort of previous projects did you look at and say, âThis is where we want to start building the Nimbus idea. These are the features we need to look at.â
Rabbani: Nimbus is actually our third controller in the iOS ecosystem. So this isnât our first go at it, which is part of the reason why I think it came out as such a great controller.
[…] We wanted a controller that felt good, if not better, than any of the other console controllers out there. And that was a test we set out to prove to ourselves. This wasnât for bragging rights. Youâll never see us go out and say that, âWeâve proven that this controller is better than the Xbox One controller!â
But really, that was our benchmark.
Music to my ears. The Stratus XL was VASTLY improved over the original Stratus. I had problems with both controllers, but give this to SteelSeries: they learn from their mistakes.
I cannot wait to see the third Stratus SteelSeries makes. If it is as much improved over itâs predecessor as this controller is over the first Stratus, weâre in for a real treat.
It seems like my hopes might have come true with the Nimbus. Tentatively, at least – I still need to actually get my hands on one and judge for myself.
GamesBeat: Is the Nimbus a joint product? Is this going to be packed in with the Apple TV?
Rabbani: It is its own product, so it is a third-party controller ⦠but it wasnât developed like your typical third-party product.
[…] From conception to design to validation ⦠itâs been done jointly. There is technology in there that has been 100 percent designed by Apple, thereâs technology that is 100 percent designed by SteelSeries.
[…] We had already identified that iOS gaming was going to be big, and we wanted to be on the forefront of it. So we started working on these things years ago.
So in the natural flow of conversation [with Apple], even before Apple knew what they wanted to do with the TV, these discussions were going on and everything flowed into this project.
And now we know why Apple carries the Stratus controllers instead of the superior controllers by Mad Catz: Apple has a closer relationship with SteelSeries.
Apple rarely co-designs products with other companies. It’s a testament to how little Apple gives a damn about gaming that they’re willing to give SteelSeries the credit for this controller.
For the first 2 years of the MFi controller program, Apple was content to let the little guys fight it out. It seems Apple has decided to throw their weight behind SteelSeries now.
My guess: if Apple ever does get serious about gaming, they’ll buy SteelSeries immediately.
Yet another upcoming Apple TV game has been revealed: Plastic Fantastic Squad, a free-to-play shooter from former Medal of Honor producer Greg Goodrich, will be arriving soon on iOS and Apple TV.
In the free-to-play game’s fiction, players control 5-inch tall action figures that have come to life and are fighting for control of a house. Each figure can be customized with weapons and accessories. The game includes a robust 125-mission-long single-player campaign as well as support for player-versus-player online gaming with features like clan support, tournaments, leaderboards and replays.
…The Apple TV version will use the touch-controls of the remote and will also support third-party controllers. Players using the remote will drag their thumb on the touchpad to aim, move forward by holding the Play button and move backwards by tapping Play and then holding it. Tapping the touchpad makes the character jump and clicking and holding the touchpad makes the figure throw a grenade.
Fantastic Plastic Squad would be a release to look forward to even if it weren’t coming to the Apple TV. Questions about the free-to-play implementation aside, there aren’t enough capable shooters on iOS. Assuming Fantastic Plastic Squad isn’t bogged down by its business model, we could be looking at a real classic here.
At long last, the controller I’ve been waiting for is here.
For many, a Bluetooth controller, console-style, perhaps with a phone grip, is the perfect design. But while I’ve diligently reviewed these controllers, I’ve never particularly liked that form-factor. Even at it’s best, Bluetooth is finicky. Phone grips are nice to have, but the angle they hold the screen at has always been unpleasant to me. These controllers work great for playing on a TV, but to me, they just don’t feel suited to mobile play.
The Gamevice is the controller I wanted from the beginning. A purpose-built controller that actually feels designed for iOS. A controller that connects directly to the iPad, fits it like a glove, and doesn’t distract with random bluetooth disconnects or battery life concerns. A controller that gets out of your way and lets you play.
This review might re-tread familiar territory for those of you who’ve read my extensive Gamevice Preview article. But as this review will make clear, much has change between today’s Gamevice and the one I first used at CES. Pretty much every nitpick I had has been corrected, every rough edge polished, leaving a practically perfect controller.
In my opinion, the Gamevice is the best MFi controller ever made. But it’s also not for everyone. That statement might sound strange, but I’ll attempt to go over everything, good and bad, in this review, and explain exactly why I’ve reached the conclusions I have.
Design and Feel
Everything about the Gamevice feels premium. This should be expected from the $100 price tag, but is isn’t always the situation.
The plastic is nicely matted thoughout, with a surface texture reminiscent of the aluminum shell of the iPad itself. The buttons and triggers are a glossy, thick-feeling plastic.
Connecting your iPad Mini to the Gamevice is painless. Insert the iPad Mini (any version), Lightning-side-first, into the Gamevice, then pull the other half of the Gamevice outward and slip it around the other end of the iPad. The connection is snug – the Gamevice uses tension to pull both halves gently into the iPad, keeping it from wobbling. iPad cases are not supported, but I’ve never been a case person anyways.
Snap your iPad Mini into the Gamevice and start playing
The Gamevice’s shape is arguably its most unique – and controversial – feature. Unlike every other controller I’m aware of, the handles are angled away from your hands. Instead of your wrists facing inwards to grip the controller, they face outwards. The reason for this design was explained to me by the CEO of Gamevice as such: your hands grip inwards when holding a regular controller because of how small the controller is. Widen the controller, and your hands will naturally bend outwards.
That’s how it works in theory, anyways. In practice, I think the folks at Gamevice were a little too clever for their own good. The outward handles of the controller might make sense if the controller was wider than the distance between your arms. The thing is, an iPad Mini and a Gamevice just aren’t that wide – for me at least, they’re very close to the width between my arms. So my wrists end up being bent slightly outwards when holding this controller.
This isn’t the end of the world, but it gets a little unpleasant after several hours of continuous play, especially while lying down. Making the sides of the controller perfectly parallel would have made sense – indeed, this is the approach Nintendo took with their Wii U gamepad, and it’s the one Gamevice prototyped before redesigning their controller to the current form.
This inverted handle design might turn out to be more comfortable with the larger size of the iPad Air Gamevice. As it stands with the iPad Mini, they overthought this situation and made the controller a little bit less perfect than it should be.
The inverted handles contrast with traditional controller design
The Details
A good controller is more than the sum of its parts. But those parts still count for something. Many MFi controllers have been great in most ways, but suffer one fatal flaw or another in the details – the Stratus XL has terrible triggers, the PowerShell has a painful d-pad, the Stratus has flimsy analog sticks. Does the Gamevice have any deal-breaking flaws? Read on.
The Analog Sticks
The analog sticks establish what turns out to be a common pattern with the Gamevice: borrow the best aspects of the Xbox One controller. Just like an Xbox One controller’s analog sticks, these are pleasantly rubberized, concave, and full-size. They feature a ridged rim around the edges of the stick, creating an exceptionally grippy surface that your thumbs will never slip from.
The Gamevice uses concentric rings for the edges of the analog sticks. It isn’t quite as pleasant as the cross-hatched ridge on the Xbox One controller, but it feels almost identical, and it’s far superior to the stick design of any other MFi controller. In fact, it’s probably the second best analog stick design I’ve used, just behind the Xbox One’s.
After relatively heavy play for the past 9 months, the rubberized ridges show minimal wear, and still grip my thumb perfectly. This serves as a testament to how much better this stick design is to the Xbox 360’s, which wears down notoriously fast.
Perfect buttons, perfect joysticks
The ABXY Buttons
The face buttons on the Gamevice are perfect. They’re large – the same size as those on an Xbox controller, and slightly smaller than those on a PlayStation controller, making them perfect for pulling off difficult button combos. They’re rounded off, with a pleasant beveling that prevents the type of thumb pain I find my self getting after extensive gaming sessions on a Wii U gamepad. They’re double-shot plastic, meaning the colors on the buttons are never going to fade, no matter how much you use them. They activate smoothly, meaning they’ll never have the sort of plastic-on-plastic grind a few controllers occasionally exhibit.
As I said, they’re perfect.
Killer buttons and d-pad make the Gamevice perfect for retro gaming
The D-pad
The Gamevice has by far the best d-pad of any MFi controller. Just one look goes a long way towards telling you why. This is the only MFi controller without the dreaded circular d-pad. Many of us assumed that Apple’s MFi spec required controllers to have circular d-pad; this was inaccurate. The Gamevice’s d-pad fits perfectly well within Apple’s standard, thus making the terrible d-pads on (almost) every other MFi controller even less excusable.
The Gamevice’s d-pad takes the shape, texture and position of the Xbox One d-pad and couples it with the activation feel of the Wii U’s d-pad. It’s a good fit. The mechanical clickiness you get when you activate the Xbox One’s d-pad is a little bit nicer, but hey, I’m not going to complain – again, the Gamevice’s d-pad is far better than that of any other MFi controller.
The first excellent d-pad on an MFi controller
The Shoulder Buttons and Triggers
The triggers and shoulder buttons are as close as the Gamevice comes to having a weakness, and they’re still not bad.
Ironically, the problem here is that the Gamevice copied the Xbox One controller almost perfectly, and the Xbox One has a flawed shoulder button design. Unlike the excellent shoulder buttons on the Xbox 360 controller, the Xbox One changes the shape of the upper shoulder bumpers such that it’s difficult to reach them with the side of your pointer fingers. You either have to adopt a middle-fingers-on-the-triggers grip, or you have to reach your finger awkwardly around from the triggers to the upper shoulder buttons. It would have been nice if the Gamevice had corrected this problem, but no such luck. It’s better than many controllers, but it’s a slight blemish on an otherwise great design.
In my preview of the Gamevice, I mentioned some roughness activating triggers. This was corrected in the final controller – the triggers are smooth, pleasant, and activate with a nice (though light) degree of pressure. It would just be even nicer if moving your finger between the triggers and shoulder buttons wasn’t so awkward.
The Gamevice borrows much from the Xbox One controller
Extras and Ports
Using one micro USB cable, you can simultaneously charge both the Gamevice and the connected iPad. This is an essential feature for marathon game sessions, and I’m happy to say it works exactly as expected here. This may seem obvious, but the MOGA Ace Power doesn’t charge the iPhone it’s connected to while the controller is charging.
Audio output for the Gamevice is handled via an integrated headphone port. This means the Gamevice itself handles audio decoding, rather than the iPad. This had issues in prototype versions of the iPad – the left and right stereo channels were inexplicably reversed on most of the prototypes I used – but this issue appears to be resolved on the final version. Sound quality is good, though not quite as good as the sound from the iPad’s integrated headphone jack. It’s perfectly serviceable for gaming, but disconnect the Gamevice when it’s time to listen to music.
Use AirPlay to beam your iPad gaming to the TV
iPad Compatibility
There has been some confusion about exactly which devices the Gamevice is compatible with. Let me be clear: the Gamevice I’m reviewing today – the only Gamevice currently available – is exclusively compatible with the iPad Mini, iPad Mini 2, iPad Mini 3, and upcoming iPad Mini 4. I have personally used a prototype of the iPad Air version, but not nearly enough to review it at this time.
This leads to an important point: in terms of gaming performance, the iPad Mini line is the weakest line of iOS products Apple sells.
When the Gamevice was first conceived, this wasn’t the case. The iPad Air and iPad Mini 2 were equally powerful, meaning there was nothing to dissuade gamers from buying the smaller iPad, and the folks designing the Gamevice from targeting those gamers. Then Apple changed the rules. The iPad Air 2 was released as a quantum leap in performance over every other iOS device, whereas the iPad Mini 3 was stuck with the same aging A7 processor from the previous generation. Suddenly, gamers had a clear reason to opt for the larger iPad Air and avoid the Mini.
So here we are. The Gamevice is out, but only compatible with the weakest iOS device Apple sells. There was some hope that Apple would change this with the iPad 4, but unfortunately, even with its upgraded internals, it is still the weakest gaming device Apple sells.
That is not to say the iPad Mini is a bad device for gaming; it’s actually quite excellent. The A7 chip in the Mini 2 and Mini 3 and A8 chip in the Mini 4 are more than capable of holding their now. The problem is, they’re far weaker than the chips in the larger iPads, meaning most hardcore gamers would probably opt for the larger devices, making the market for a hardcore iPad Mini gaming accessory potentially small.
I can’t help but feel that the upcoming iPad Air version and iPhone version of the Gamevice will be much better – and more successful – products.
The Gamevice combines Wii U layout with the Xbox One design
Conclusion
In the past, every MFi controller review talks about how well (or poorly) a controller works within the confines of Apple’s MFi spec. I’ve always had to use that crutch – the controller is great for an MFi controller. With the Gamevice, this clarification is unnecessary. The Gamevice isn’t just a great MFi controller. The Gamevice is one of the best controllers ever made, of any kind, for any platform.
Sure, it borrows a lot from Microsoft’s Xbox One controller. But so what? The Xbox One controller is great. The history of game controllers is comprised of companies copying features and layouts first pioneered by other companies. The Gamevice takes the best aspects of the Xbox One controller, puts them in a form-factor similar to (but superior than) the Wii U Gamepad, and packages it all together to perfectly the iPad.
The Gamevice is the best MFi controller, period.
I can’t tell you whether or not you should spend $99 on a controller. What I can say is that this is the best MFi controller ever. I can tell you that unlike other controllers that launched at this price point, the build quality actually reflects the asking price.
The only thing holding me back from wholeheartedly recommending the Gamevice is the exclusive compatibility with the iPad Mini. The Gamevice is an incredible controller, but as a gaming device, the iPad Mini is questionable. Investing $99 dollars into a controller that only works with Apple’s weakest iOS device might be a mistake. The iPad Mini 4 remedies the issue somewhat by including an A8 processor, but that still places it firmly at the bottom of Apple’s range. The Gaming iPad is unquestionably the iPad Air, and that version of the Gamevice makes a lot more sense to me.
But that’s a topic for another review. The fact of the matter is, if you want the best controller you can possibly get for your iPad Mini, this is it. In fact, the Gamevice is far and away the best MFi controller, period. The price is intimidating – $99 is twice as much as other perfectly serviceable controllers – but the Gamevice is more than twice as good as the competition.
My iPad Mini no longer leaves my Gamevice; this is how I play iOS games now.
