Sharp Introduces Prototype VR Controller with Haptic Gloves and Standard Buttons

So, Sharp is throwing a curveball out there, right? They’re cooking up this VR haptic controller in Japan. The whole deal is to make you actually feel things in VR. Imagine touching textures in a game. Sounds like science fiction becoming, well, slightly less fiction.

Now, these controllers—they’ve got these little doo-dads on your fingertips. Fancy words aside, they vibrate to give you all sorts of sensations. Smooth, rough, maybe even slimy—I mean, I dunno. It’s like a tactile rollercoaster, with Sharp in the control booth grinning ear to ear.

Thing is, they’re not exactly saying it feels 100% real. It’s more like a ‘work in progress’ canvas, if you catch my drift. Sharp’s got this notion of letting people (yeah, real users like you and me) play around with it to help fine-tune the whole shebang. Not sure how I feel about being a guinea pig… but hey, participation trophies?

There’s this pic floating around—some kind of sneak peek, but it’s like looking at a digital ghost. And guess what? They say you get a pair, one for each hand, but don’t expect ‘em to track every wobble of your fingers like those high-tech gloves. No heat feedback, either. Kinda feeling a bit like a half-cooked idea, right?

They’re aiming for these gadgets to do double duty: the typical buttons and sticks—and these mystery touch elements. But are they gonna work with every VR setup? Your guess is as good as mine. Sharp’s being coy, hints of compatibility with big-name tracking systems… occasionally.

Oh, by the way, they’re already dishing these out to eager hands in Japan. Pre-registrations closed, and they slapped a ¥100,000 (~$680) price tag on them. Not exactly pocket change. But a heads-up: Sharp’s dangling a warning that the whole project might just vanish.

And don’t underestimate Sharp in the XR arena—they’ve got some street cred here. They were big in the Meta Quest 2 days, and alongside NTT Docomo, rolled out some AR glasses called MiRZA in late ’24. So, they’ve danced around this tech floor before. Still, VR controllers… what a ride they’re promising, or threatening, depending on how you see it.