Asus Reveals New Wii… err… Eee Controller

There’s something about this new controller for the Asus Eee PC that looks… familiar. I can’t quite put my motion sensitive finger on it.

Much like a certain pair of other well known controlelrs, the new Asus controller has motion sensing, pointer functionality, a white paint scheme… hell, it even has the same wrist straps. The new product doesn’t crib from just a single inspirational source, however. The D-pad is very similar to the one on the Playstation controllers, while the analog stick is very similar to both the Wii Nunchuck and the 360 controller. If you’re going to steal, might as well steal from the best.

The Franken-controller could be the best of all worlds for certain PC games and applications. Asus is most likely banking on not getting sued by the fact that this isn’t designed for the consoles. There are other gyroscopic and motion sensing controllers on the market already for PC, even ones that share the same basic ergonomic shape. There are even Playstation inspired controllers for PC. I’ve never seen one that has so blatantly copied from the console world though. Should be interesting to see if Nintendo responds. Their lawyers are brutal.

No word yet on pricing or release dates. The full press release can be found here. The official title is “Eee Stick.” Asus loses major points for not naming it what the rest of us are going to call it, the Eee-mote.