To get people interested in their new haptic (3-D touch) game controller, Novint is running a beta program for early users of its new Falcon.

Join the company’s beta testing program and earn a $50 rebate on purchases, says Novint CEO Tom Anderson.

The early results of the consumer-research program are interesting. One of the questions Novint asks its testers, according to Anderson, is what their favorite game is. “The responses are pretty well distributed across the board. All of the games are getting votes,” he says.

One of the game packs Novint offers is Newton’s Monkey Business™, a collection of 24 touch-enabled minigames.

Depending on a user’s proclivities, they seem to feel that the Falcon controller makes it feel like they really are carving through snow, driving a golf ball, shooting hoops, or going over a bumpy road with the driving game.

The early response seems to show that the controller works well – gives a realistic “feel” for the game – across a variety of applications.

That is important from a marketing standpoint. The company sees its early revenues coming from gamers. “Our target audience is the video game market,” Anderson confirms.

However, most games — while they have the physics to offer “feel” in their games – do not have the physics linked to the controller.

That leaves him in the interesting situation of having to develop software for games that will take full advantage of the hardware’s capability.

• Wah-Wah film

The company hopes the Novint logo will become the equivalent of the “Intel Inside” logo for computers, putting gamers on the right track gamers for software and hardware that are compatible with the enhanced experience.

The idea is to make virtual items and experiences feel real. Instead of controlling a game with mouse-clicks and meters, one can feel the weight of a basketball as you shoot it towards a hoop — the momentum and impact as you swing a virtual golf club and strike a ball — the recoil of a weapon – or the physical characteristics of virtual objects and environments. “We tie to the physics engine,” Anderson explains.

Novint traces its history to Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. Anderson worked there in the mid-1990s on haptic (3-D touch) projects. In 2000, he was developing software for haptic devices. “Then I got the entrepreneurial itch,” he says. They licensed the technology out of Sandia and went off on their own.

Today, the Falcon is the major offering. The current unit is designed to be used in one hand. But there will be more soon. A two-handed application will allow boxing as a game. And, there is a drumming game in development that also will require two handed motion.

Shooters will like the next application coming out: a pistol grip. Anderson says that the pistol grip is sensitive enough that a player can tell the difference between a .22 caliber pistol and a .357 magnum. “They will kick different – and you’ll get a true video kick, as well as feel it,” he says.