Accessories

The classic keyboard and mouse setup is a gaming staple, but there are two other appendages slacking off under the desk: your feet. Gamer brand MSI is now launching the Liberator, a programmable foot pedal that can be used for any action in any game.

The Nintendo Switch may be portable, but its dock not so much. The OmniCentro, aims to solve that problem with a pocket-sized gizmo that fast-charges the battery and outputs the visuals to a display – upscaling the resolution to 4K in the process.

The global pandemic and necessary lockdowns have seen many folks staying at home to work, and a good number may continue to do so as restrictions are eased. To meet the needs of this remote workforce, Lenovo has launched the Go brand of accessories.

Sweaty palms are never a good thing, and now a new start-up is taking matters into their own hands with the Zephyr. This gaming mouse has a built-in fan to keep gamers’ hands cool. At the same time it's lightweight, responsive, and finished in LEDs.

Haptic feedback is becoming a bigger part of entertainment. Now, a German startup is launching the Feelbelt, which adds the element of touch to games, music, movies, and basically any other device that outputs sound.

The 3dRudder, a kind of balance board that players steer with their feet, is making its way to PlayStation VR users in the US.

We’ve been singing the praises of the Nintendo Switch for years, but there are a couple of little things that could use some improvement. Now, a new accessory fills one of those holes – the Genki Covert Dock, a small device that charges the console and lets players plug it into TVs on the go.

VR has aced movement of the hands and head, but it’s still tricky to track the feet. Now games hardware company Kat is crowdfunding the Kat Loco, a set of three sensors that attach to a player’s feet and hip to translate movements in the real world into walking, running or strafing in the game.

It’s hard to hook up the analog outputs of the original Nintendo 64 to the digital inputs of a modern TV. Now a small company called Eon has stepped in to fill the void with the Super 64, an adapter that lets you plug the console into an HDMI port, and upscales the resolution.

The keyboard and mouse combo is the long-standing weapon of choice for players of first-person shooter games. Now a Chinese company called Ragnok is trying to ramp up the realism a bit with the Mousegun, a controller that’s designed to look and feel like the handle of a pistol.

With iPhones using Lightning ports, Android phones (and iPad Pros) using USB-C, laptops using a mixture of USB-A and USB-C, and chargers covering just about every base, getting your mobile devices juiced up can be a hassle. Enter the 5-in-1 charging cable, High Five.

Microsoft seems to be going all-in merging console and PC gaming, and last month announced that keyboard and mouse compatibility was coming to the Xbox One. Razer is the first manufacturer to come to the table, announcing a wireless keyboard-and-mouse combo called the Razer Turret for Xbox One.