![]() ![]() But not Microsoft, maker of the very popular Flight Simulator game. Several manufacturers have licensed I-Force technology for their products. Immersion was inspired by highly specialized force feedback devices used in training military personnel and in steering robotic hands that handle highly radioactive core reactor rods in nuclear power plants. It uses a technology called I-Force, created by the Immersion Corporation. The first mass market consumer force-feedback joystick was the Force FX, was introduced in November 1996 by CH Products. The new devices cost between $100 and $250. ![]() But as feedback effects edge closer to imitating the real thing, enthusiastic gamers are willing to shell out cash to get their hands on the goods. Hit a bump in the road or fire a machine gun and the device responds accordingly, with a staccato vibration of the joystick or a weighty jolt in the steering wheel. The force feedback effects are created by high-torque motors that respond to instructions from game programs. While force-feedback joysticks have been around for a couple of years, the latest devices promise more realistic responses, better designs and, most important, better support for the kinds of games that take advantage of them: flying and driving games. ''People have taken an interest in realism, which has driven technology forward,'' said Mark Szabo, the editor in chief of Force One, a Web site dedicated to force feedback (''Game developers have finally started to take advantage of the hardware.'' They want a more realistic ''feel'' from a new crop of add-on gaming devices with a feature known as ''force feedback,'' which makes the device react and respond in the player's hands to what is happening on screen. That scene could be played out with any number of video games, but players who take their fun very seriously are no longer content with better-looking on-screen cockpits and dashboards. A fast free fall with no sensation at all, then one final shudder from the stick when plane meets ground. An instant later, a weighty lunge nearly rips the joystick right out of your hand. You squeeze the trigger on your joystick and it rat-tat-tats vigorously in your grip. An enemy plane floats across your sights. YOU'RE flying a World War II prop fighter. ![]()
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