Since I never wrote a paper out on a typewriter, have had a cell phone since I was sixteen, and remember playing Super Mario on gameboy as a kid, I consider myself a tech-boom baby. Back in the mid to late eighties, I remember listening to records, than switching to tapes by the nineties and on to CDs in their turn.
Now, not too much later, very few people buy CDs when they can download (legal and illegal) MP3s much more cheaply.
I still miss the old school video games such as Sonic the Hedgehog and the regular, two dimension Super Mario (Now those were the days), and I wouldn’t trade the mobility and affordability of today’s laptops for anything.
In other words, I saw it all when it came to pop-culture, technological moves, but I did so at a strategically enviable time. I can appreciate how far we’ve come while still adapting easily to where we’re going.
Yet I have to say that I still get impressed on the leaps and bounds we make every year.
Take Logitech International SA (USA) (Nasdaq: ), which just made racing games that much more interactive. Not too long ago, racing fans had to seek their couch potato thrills via clunky gaming consoles - either that or go to the arcade. But thanks to first Nintendo, and now Logitech, we can sit comfortably at our gaming seats, holding onto an actual wheel while swerving down slick streets and careening around crazy corners.
As I stated above, this is still cutting edge though Nintendo developed the software and equipment first. But Logitech’s model - built for compatibility with PC and PS3 platforms - still comes with enough extras to make any true gamer’s eyes light up. Check it out:
- Dual-motor force feedback mechanism for smooth and accurate high-fidelity force effects
- Hand-stitched leather wheel to combat traction loss, weight shift and featured road surfaces.
- Helical gears for quiet steering action and controlled vibration
- A six-speed gated shifter just to make things even more lifelike
- Clutch pedal design for realistic heel-and-toe downshifting.
If you don’t understand half of that, let me translate and summarize, because it all comes down to a single word: profitability.
It’ll be available in the US and Europe come September, and if you read my last blog, you’ll know why it - and the correlating stock - has such a good shot in the market.
