On business trips, I have to take my Pocket PC - an HP IPAQ HX2495 (which I've got loaded with work stuff) with me. I've recently loaded a GBA emulator and a few ROMS onto it, with the aim of using it on the plane in place of bringing my PSP or DS with me. The direction pad and buttons on the PDA suck for games, and I'm looking for a game controller instead. I've read that the Sony Clie once had a game controller (http://palmtops.about.com/library/weekly/aapr111002a.htm) and there is one available for PDAs and smartphones, although it's a bit funny-looking and won't fit my IPAQ (http://www.mobile-review.com/pda/review/bt-gamepad-en.shtml). Does anyone have any experience in this area. All I'm after is a Pocket PC-compatible bluetooth (or wired) controller like a SNES one. Wouldn't have thought it would be too hard to find, but guess I'm wrong.... Cheers, Dave.
Update: I've just found this (http://www.beinteractive.co.kr/eng/frame.asp?frname=products). Now to find out where to get one. Of course, why would I carry around a gamepad that's as big as a DS or PSP instead of just bringing a DS or PSP with me? Hmmm.... Maybe all I'm after is a little joystick that clicks onto the IPAQs existing D-pad. Anyone know if such a thing exists? Dave.
I can't recommend the Pocket PC as a viable gaming platform. The big reason is because Intel forced developers to drop support for other processors in favor of Intel's XScale Strongarm chip, and so invalidated seven years of Windows CE interoperability. There are many games and many emulators available, but as long as XScale is the hardware base I won't be a user. If you can, you probably want to go for one of the older Pocket PC 2000 models that has a MIPS VR4XXX series processor. Many of these are Casio devices that not only support multiple keypresses, but have the D-pad in the lower left corner just like a gaming handheld. That way you get good performance and no need for an additional peripheral. Hopefully, at some point MIPS will make a comeback and unseat the ARM chip as the major Windows CE processor again. Until that point, Microsoft's lost a customer in me.
pick up a NEC Mobilepro 770 for around 50 bucks, or even a jornada 680/720, they come with a good size keyboard, loads of apps and some fairly decent emulators (mostly everything pre-SNES)....
Thanks for the replies, but I already have an IPAQ (it's loaded with GPS and GIS software for my work). I'm currently running PocketGBA and Pocket Nester which offer great compatibility, but for the controls. I was just hoping there was a little joystick-type thing that would fit over the existing direction pad to make it easier to use. I might be able to fashion one up myself. I'm not going to carry around an extra pad, or a significant attachment. I find it a bit odd, with the rise in popularity of PDA / smartphones, that there is little after-market support for game accessories for them (I'm guessing it's just the sheer variety of types available), but certainly the potential is there for gaming on these things to take off. Dave.
some pretty good keyboards were made for the Ipaqs: http://image.compusa.com/prodimages/27/95eeae1a-2250-11d6-a0fa-00805fbbb715.gif But I'm not sure if those devices are compatible with games. btw, have you already seen Quake 3 on a PDA? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNJXjNBgmLs&NR=1
