Sure they have comic books at a comic book convention, but nerds also like gizmos, gadgets and computer peripherals. This year’s New York Comic Convention and Anime Festival had plenty of accessories for your gaming rig, and portable devices. They ranged from the cutesy kawaii, to total nerdcore.
Gametech doesn’t actually make gadgets themselves, but they do make cover and cases for gadgets you might already own. At the con they were showing two lines; Wasabi and Decoling. The Wasabi line is a series of skins and cases for PSP DS and iPhone/Pad. They’re made of materials that range from plastic to cloth, even wood. The prints are mostly traditional Japanese artwork, and they tend to a bit on the girly side, but men can find some suitably masculine prints too. Wasabi products can be ordered from www.my-wasabi.com.
Gametech’s other line was called Decoling. The Decoling line is the epitome of kawaii ultra-cuteness. Sparkly, frilly, covered in flowers, candy and butterflies, this line of gadget skins is only for tween girls, or members of the hardcore goth-loli crowd. They are handmade and come in Princess, Goth, Punk, or “Sweets” styles. They can be ordered from www.decoling.com.
Speaking of cute, Mimoco was showing off their Mimobots (Pronounced like Meme-o-bot). Mimobots are usb flash drives shaped like adorable little cartoon characters or vinyl toys. Mimoco has a line of original characters, but they also license characters like Hello Kitty, and Domo, along with nerd culture icons, like Star Wars characters. They also have community contests so that you can design your own characters. Of course Mimoco handles video game franchises like Halo (Which are a limited edition). 
They function like a regular flashdrive, are compantible with USB 1 or 2, and work with PC and Mac OS. They’re available in sizes from 2-16 gigs of data. Each one comes with a set of software featuring the Mimo characters, a screensaver, wallpapers, and chatroom avatars. They also come with icons so that your flashdrive's icon on your desktop matches the character on your Mimobot. Mimobots can be purchased from www.mimoco.com.
Turtle Beach was on hand to demonstrate their gaming headsets, sound cards and accessories. They make models for PC, but also do PS3, XBox and even Wii (For the hardcore Wii gamers who need the best possible sound when playing Princess Peach: Enchanted Tea Party). Their products range from simple thirty dollar headsets to high-end wireless surround sound headsets which go for two-hundred dollars. They can bought at most retailers and more information can be found at www.turtlebeach.com.
Finally, tucked away inside a room over in the Intel gaming section was a nifty gadget which might be big news in the future. It’s made by a company called Microvision and is called the PicoP Display Engine. Have you ever thought it would be cool to attach a projector to a light gun, then put all of that into a gun-shaped case, with a control pad? Well, even if you never thought about doing that, people at Microvision did.
They were displaying a rifle-shaped controller with a tiny, wireless HD projector built into it. The gun has a motion sensor, and a keypad which simulates the WASD keys for movement. This allows players to swing the gun around “Aiming” with the motion sensor, while the projector keeps an image of the game wherever they look. The effect is like being the middle of a 360 degree screen, or even a holodeck.
It’s still in the early stages of development, and no price or release date has been announced. The video below is a gameplay demonstration of the controller in action.
Keep an eye out for our Tech and Gadget reports in the future, where Player Affinity be following the development of Microvision’s PicoP gun along with all of the products mentioned above.
