New game controller tickles the thumbs The prototype of a new kind of video game controller features typical thumb joysticks (white) but also has a round, red "tactor" in the center of each joystick to tug gently at the thumb tips. Credit: University of Utah SALT LAKE CITY, March 5 (UPI) -- A new video game controller can pull and stretch the user's thumb tips to simulate the tug of a fishing line or the recoil of a gun, its U.S. developers say. Developed at the University of Utah, the new controller has typical thumb joysticks but also has a round "tactor" in the center of each joystick to tug gently at the thumb tips. The controller is a step beyond current controllers, many of which can vibrate the hands, in it use of haptics -- research about touch -- to improve the gaming experience, its developers said. "We have developed feedback modes that enhance immersiveness and realism for gaming scenarios such as collision, recoil from a gun, the feeling of being pushed by ocean waves or crawling prone in a first-person shooter game," mechanical engineering professor William Provancher said in a university release. The first touch feedback in game controllers came in 1997 with the Nintendo64 system's "rumble pack" that vibrated the hands to simulate the feel of driving a race car on a gravel road, flying a jet or dueling with Star Wars light sabers, researchers said. "I'm hoping we can get this into production when the next game consoles come out in a couple of years," Pravancher said in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he was demonstrating the controller at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' Haptics Symposium.