Tired of Using Touch Screen Controls to Play iOS Games? Try the 60Beat Gamepad!

Make your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch feel like a game console.

So you've decided that you like to play games on iOS, but there are many games out there that have terrible touch controls. You hate those darn touch controls so much that you decided to delete the game that you paid a lot of money for. Well, no more. Now you can play games with bad touch controls easily with the new 60Beat Gamepad which is a portable console-shaped controller which plugs into the headphone jack of your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch and really works as a fully functional game controller. I think it's amazing that it works through the headphone jack with a cable that is four feet long - that makes it unobtrusive so that you can keep charging your device even when gaming. Here is a video demonstration of the device:

Youtube Video


As you can see, the controller actually takes over the controls for the game. The touch controls actually disappear from the screen and the 60Beat Gamepad replaces the touch controls for a feeling that most of us are already used to. Since the touch controls disappear, more of your screen is dedicated to game-play instead of controls. While lugging around a controller might seem uncanny, it's not too large and not too heavy at only 5.5 ounces and six inches being its largest dimension. You can simply pack it away in a purse, backpack, or anywhere that it will fit and bring it around without noticing it's there until you're ready to use it.

The controller comes in at a hefty $49.99; a pretty steep price for an accessory, but if you think about it, countless cases come in costing more than that and this device does more than the cases do. It has dual analog sticks, directional buttons, and controller buttons, as well as buttons under your index fingers. Also, there's a slight prerequisite, games need to be written with support for the device - meaning not all games work with it out of the box. Currently, only two games support the 60Beat Gamepad; Bugdom 2 and Aftermath. 60Beta claims that countless more games will gain support for the device in February 2012 and that these two games were used in testing for the device.

Right now, I can think of many games that could be beneficial with a device like this. Modern Combat 3: Fallen Nation is a great first person shooter for iOS with awesome graphics and game-play, but one thing that a lot of people can agree on is that the touch controls are a little bit tricky on that little screen. This 60Beta Gamepad could help us feel like we're playing true console-quality games on iOS in addition to the fact that the new A5 processor comes with a GPU (graphics processing unit) capable of rendering graphics seven to eight times faster than previous devices.

All in all, I think I might have to try this thing out. If we don't like it we can just return it right? What do you think about the 60Beta Gamepad? Share in the comments.
This article was tipped by Modmyi reader BenderRodriguez.