Motorola's Moto Mod gamepad is $80 (and a Verizon exclusive)

[David Matthews]

The ever-increasing power of smartphones has led directly to the rise of "hardcore" mobile gaming. While some games are made specifically with touch in mind, other genres such as first-person shooters and action games need the precision that comes with a traditional game controller.

Companies such as MadCatz (RIP) and SteelSeries have for years made competent controllers for our mobile devices. Now, it's Motorola's turn.

The company has released pricing and availability on its own Moto Mod gamepad and some of you may not like it.

Releasing on August 25, the Moto Mod is going to cost around $80 and is exclusive to Verizon. It's interesting that Motorola would choose to sell the Mod only through Verizon despite the fact that the Moto Z line is technically available on all four major U.S. carriers (if you buy it through their website, at least). Furthermore, why price the Mod so high when the SteelSeries Stratus and MadCatz C.T.R.L controllers both cost less?

To be fair, the gamepad itself doesn't look too bad in my eyes. It has twin thumb sticks, a D-pad, four physical action buttons and shoulder buttons. Since it connects directly to the phone instead of Bluetooth, that should negate any perceptible input lag. The 1,035mAh battery also extends the phone's battery life an additional eight hours.

Motorola's take on modularity continues to be one of the better implementations but the relatively high price of most of the Mods makes jumping into the Moto ecosystem expensive. Still, for those Motorola gamers out there, this gamepad is at least a welcome addition to the Moto Mod family.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/70532-moto-mod-gamepad-80-verizon-exclusive.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

"The 1,035mAh battery also extends the phone's battery life an additional eight hours."

BS. The 2200MaH incipio external battery back only gives 2.5 hours of Sot. No way a battery half the size gives "8 additional hours" whatever that means.

 

[Evernessince]

"The ever-increasing power of smartphones has led directly to the rise of "hardcore" mobile gaming. While some games are made specifically with touch in mind, other genres such as first-person shooters and action games need the precision that comes with a traditional game controller."

Wow, 2 Oxymorons in one paragraph. Really laying it on here. Mobile gaming will never be considered hardcore and controllers are by no standard precise.

I have a Moto Z and have purchased zero mods. They are way too expensive. It's like Motorola is trying to make it so that people leave their ecosystem. They need to bring mod prices way down, to the point where I can get a few and still spend less then just outright buying a Nintendo switch. Some of the mods, like the Camera one, are priced so poorly that I can go out and just straight up buy a high quality camera for the same amount of money.

 

[petert]

It's interesting that Motorola would choose to sell the Mod only through Verizon despite the fact that the Moto Z line is technically available on all four major U.S. carriers (if you buy it through their website, at least). Furthermore, why price the Mod so high when the SteelSeries Stratus and MadCatz C.T.R.L controllers both cost less?

It is called hating your customers, dumb marketing decision of an shite manager at the top level and so on ...

Everybody thinks they are Apple these days except that their crap don't usually deliver up to the hype like Apple's

 

[Trillionsin]

Whoa another risk of a lawsuit over their handheld design uh oh

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

I wouldn't care less if they charged $800 for the thing and made it a sidewalk vendor exclusive. I've got far better things to do and play video games on than playing games on a mobile device.

 

[CaptainTom]

"Exclusive to Verizon"

Oh so it's not even technically available to people with brains. Got it