As Virtual Reality becomes more and more common place at the moment, attention is starting to turn to the little things, the details that finish off a complete experience. Where VR is concerned, one of the key details that few have gotten right up to now is the controller. When the Oculus Rift finally went on sale and shipped to early customers, it did so with a simple Xbox 360 controller, whereas the HTC Vive shipped with its own motion controllers capable of grabbing items and becoming all manner of objects like a sword or a gun. Last week, during Google I/O 2016, a new VR platform for Android, dubbed Daydream was announced with a simple motion controller, and now a leak suggests that Samsung will have their own controller for the Gear VR, too.
A leak out of the Czech Republic shows a small and compact little controller that can be clipped to the Gear VR to make everything nice and easy to carry. The leaked images depict a fairly simple affair with two shoulder buttons, a soft-touch rubber texture, one analog stick, and the usual A, B, X and Y buttons on the front. This isn’t enough buttons for most games however, including the recently-released Minecraft for Gear VR, which makes use of both trigger as well as shoulder buttons and a second analog stick, which are all missing with this controller. Even so, it’s likely that this sort of thing is going to be a simple and basic controller that will give users limited access, but better access than the included touchpad input method.
There are some more pictures of the controller down in the gallery below, but so far we only know that it’s designed to small and light, coming in at just 300g or so. It’s branded as both Gear VR and Oculus, the same branding that appears on the side of the Gear VR unit itself, so it’s pretty clear what this controller has been designed for, but just when it’ll launch is anyone’s guess right now. With the launch of the Gear Fit 2 on the horizon as well, it’s likely we could see this neat little controller alongside it, but for now we’ll have to wait and see.
