When designing the Xbox One controller, Microsoft was going for a device that hardcore gamers would love, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t get a bit wacky with its early designs for the peripheral.
Xbox general manager for accessories Zulfi Alam told GamesBeat that Microsoft experimented with a few different gimmicks in a multipart interview regarding the new controller that we’re running all this week (read part 1). One of the most interesting was a Smell-O-Vision-style technology that would emit different odors.
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The Xbox peripheral team used 3D printing and quick manufacturing techniques to actually build working models of a lot of these concepts. This iteration process enabled it to take something crazy — like a controller that makes different stinks –and turn it into a reality.
“We built small slugs of different types of smells that could actually come out of a controller,” said Alam. “Like, as you walked through a jungle, you’d smell the flora.”
Or maybe as you walk into the bathroom in a bar in Grand Theft Auto, you would smell — well, you get the idea.
Sadly, Microsoft decided not to include the aroma-based tech in its final design, but an Xbox One controller with the scent-making ability does exist. It’s probably sitting deep within the bowels of Microsoft HQ right next to all those unsold first-generation Surface RTs and the Ark of the Covenant … I wonder what all that smells like.