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Microsoft SideWinder Mouse Top  (Source: Microsoft)

Microsoft SideWinder Mouse Side  (Source: Microsoft)
Microsoft revives the SideWinder name with a new gaming mouse built in house by Microsoft

Several years ago Microsoft had a line of several gaming peripherals that all were sold under the SideWinder name. From gamepads to joysticks the gear was typically pretty good and worked well for most gamers -- until Microsoft cut the entire line.

Microsoft has pulled the derelict SideWinder name from the shadows and shined it up for a new gaming peripheral called the SideWinder Mouse. This is the first Microsoft gaming peripheral to be built from the ground up at Microsoft.

Gamers familiar with the Microsoft Habu gaming mouse and the Microsoft Reclusa keyboard will know that those two products are little more than re-branded Razer gear. This new mouse has some interesting features, one of the most notable being a Quick Turn macro button that turns your character 180 degrees at the touch of a button. A rapid about face has saved more than one geek in a hectic death match.

Microsoft has also integrated the first ever LCD screen into a production mouse. The screen doesn’t show you game details like the Logitech G15 LCD does, but is used to show the sensitivity the mouse is running at and allows you to see the macros bound to mouse buttons.

Internally the SideWinder Mouse is your standard 2000 dpi gaming mouse fare. This means it will give up some of its luster to the Logitech G9’s 3200 dpi sensitivity for gamers looking for raw speed. Microsoft did give the mouse on-the-fly adjustable sensitivity control via three buttons behind the scroll wheel. All five of the mouse buttons are customizable via included software.

Taking a page out of Logitech’s book, the SideWinder Mouse has weights that allow you to vary the feel of the mouse by adding up to 30g of weight. Microsoft also ships the mouse with three sets of feet, made from different materials, to allow you to further customize the feel to your mousing surface and preferences.

Any gamer who plays for a long period of time runs into issues with too much cable lying on the desk at some point. Microsoft addressed this problem with a built-in cable management system. The system is basically a place to coil up the excess USB cable and stuff it inside the mouse. The compartment can also double as a place to store the extra mouse feet and weights. The Microsoft SideWinder Mouse will be available in October for $79.95.

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Gaming mice
By Polynikes on 8/22/2007 7:44:04 PM , Rating: 3
I don't understand this obsession with gaming mice. I've never once had a need for a 180 degree button. Most games don't have an option for that anyways. I seriously doubt all that extra stuff has any noticeable impact on performance.




RE: Gaming mice
By afkrotch on 8/22/2007 8:20:47 PM , Rating: 3
You don't sound to be a good gamer. Having a button to quickly turn around could turn the tide in a very small decisive battle. Those precious seconds could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Me, I'd much rather have a higher dpi. I think my mouse only has around 800 dpi. It's significantly slower than many other gaming mice, that's why I looked into the Habu.

Also the 180 degree turn button doesn't need to be an option in the game. It's an option in the mouse and it's software. Pressing the button simply equates to the mouse telling itself it just did a 180 degree turn, without the user actually doing the movement. The game doesn't care what went on, it's simply told that you did a 180 degree turn.

Also many of the extra buttons, weight, extra glide, etc are to help users setup their mouse the way they want. For some uers it'll help their performance in a game. For others, it may not do anything at all.

Being able to change your dpi settings is very nice. When you are working in with like Photoshop, you lower the dpi to make slow accurate movements. For games, you turn it up so you can make fast movements, without making exaggerated mouse movements.

Extra buttons can be extremely useful for certain games. Like WoW, Tiberium Wars, or GRAW. Instead of lifting your hand off the WASD to reach for like, F10, you can just click a button. I remember games like R6:3, where you were having to lift your hand off WASD to get to M. Your MMORPGs really have no need for a 180 degree button, but being able to easily and quickly reach 10 different buttons is very helpful. Games like Counterstrike have no need for tons of different buttons, but being able to turn 180 with a click of a button is also very helpful.

That's why there are gaming keyboards and mice. To make gaming a little more easy. Course that's one of the differences between a casual gamer and hardcore gamer. Hardcore gamers take things a bit more seriously. If you're not 1st, your last.


RE: Gaming mice
By Axbattler on 8/22/2007 11:54:49 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
You don't sound to be a good gamer.

Equipment can provide a crutch. But I don't think that is what make a good/hardcore versus a less skilled/casual gamer.


RE: Gaming mice
By afkrotch on 8/23/2007 12:49:20 AM , Rating: 2
But a good/hardcore gamer will tend to get good hardware (within their budgets of course) to enhance their gaming. Looking at the fact that he can't understand why ppl care about a gaming mouse, it easily can be seen that he's either a less skilled or casual gamer.


RE: Gaming mice
By rdeegvainl on 8/23/2007 2:32:19 AM , Rating: 2
Either that or inherently awesome and never noticed a difference because he frags them all with the mouse a crappy mouse on a commodore 64!


RE: Gaming mice
By Axbattler on 8/23/2007 7:24:36 AM , Rating: 3
Extremes aside, that is where I was getting at. People could kick ass before being able to bind a 180 turn to the push of a key, so it wouldn't surprise me if some feel that some of those benefits and gimmicky and do not translates to actual into real world gains for them.

A world class player without a mouse would probably struggle even against an amateur with the best gear at CS. But I suspect that past a thresholds of equipment, the benefits become so negligible that they would not make or break a game between two top players (other externalities would count more).

Of course, I do like the idea of the benefits gaming mice are supposed to bring (many well positioned is a definite plus for me).. but I can accept skepticism to some features.


RE: Gaming mice
By Aikouka on 8/23/2007 8:28:06 AM , Rating: 2
Actually, in WoW, there are a number of classes that benefit highly from being able to efficiently turn and use an instant spell/attack while in mid air. Whether or not that 180 degree turn (which would have to be used twice) would work well for this is really up in the air.


RE: Gaming mice
By 1078feba on 8/23/2007 10:14:33 AM , Rating: 2
I play CoD 2 primarily, and, from my tiny little corner of the world, I will lay it on the line and say that a button that allows an instant 180, either in the air midjump, standing, kneeling or prone, would be perilously close to a hack. It's like altering your multiplayer config file to allow a single button to both bring the scope up to your eye with a sniper rifle and hold your breath, all in one smooth motion. It would, after you get really used to using it, give you a serious, serious advantage. Your taking rounds from your rear, hit 180 and prone and fire all at the same time and you have got a 50-50 shot (a baseless SWAG, I know, but a fair one I believe) at walking away from that firefight, whereas, prior to a 180 button, you were toast 80+% of the time.

Now, where can I buy one...heh.


RE: Gaming mice
By Polynikes on 8/28/2007 9:41:23 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah, back in the old days we had to manually write scripts for stuff like that. (Three-round bursts, radio commands, etc.) These mice take all the fun out of improving your chances in multiplayer games by implementing "features" that weren't there before.


RE: Gaming mice
By Creig on 8/23/2007 12:33:44 PM , Rating: 2
I would have to place having a 180 degree button on your mouse in the same category as running a wallhack or aimbot. In other words, a cheat.

How realistic would it look if you were playing CS:S and the guy you were sneaking up on instantaneously spun exactly 180 degrees? You would suddenly find yourself facing his gun instead of his back. That sort of ability was obviously not the intent of the game designers and would detract from the overall realism of the game.

This "feature" is nothing more than a hardware gaming cheat.


RE: Gaming mice
By afkrotch on 8/23/2007 7:44:00 PM , Rating: 2
Umm...do you actually play CS:S with a high dpi mouse? I can currently turn around 180 in CS:S on my Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000 instantaneously and my mouse only sits at 800 dpi. Which is fairly low for a gaming mouse.

A flick of my mouse (about 1/2 inch movement to either right or left) is enough to turn me 180. Whether it be a button or me actually making the movement, it's really no different. Course depending on person, I'd rather stick with doing it with my mouse, as I can control specific turns.

I can turn 160 degrees, 210 degrees, 145 degrees, etc. My enemy isn't always going to be 180 degrees behind me.

I really don't see how any person can consider this a cheat. It brings an advantage to those who suck at these games, but for the good players, it'd be a hinderance.

Well, take it as you see it, I guess.


RE: Gaming mice
By Creig on 8/24/2007 8:09:19 AM , Rating: 2
No, I don't use an ultra-high DPI mouse (800dpi), but I also can turn around fairly quickly. I'm just saying that reducing this action to simply pressing a button and making it INSTANTANEOUS is not an action the game developers could have forseen and I doubt they would have approved. If someone wants to check behind themselves, let them do it with a flick of their wrist. Having a button do it is still going to be quicker than doing it manually and will allow that person an additional split second advantage to line up a shot compared to the person using a normal mouse.

In addition, their crosshair will be at the exact same level as when they were facing forward, which is another advantage. Sometimes when spinning around, your crosshair will end up a little higher or lower which can spell the difference between a head shot and a missed shot.

Besides, seeing someone (teammate or enemy) instantly go from facing forward to facing backward to facing forward again isn't at all realistic and will detract from the game's overall realism.


RE: Gaming mice
By Polynikes on 8/28/2007 9:35:27 PM , Rating: 2
Dude, I was fragging people with my old two-button no-scroll-wheel mouse and vanilla keyboard in Action Quake 2 like it was nobody's business. Back then, simple skill was used to turn 180 degrees, though the 3D sound wasn't quite what it is now so normally your only indication someone was behind you was the spray of blood you saw when you died, because that game was 10 times faster than any multiplayer FPS out now. You didn't get a second chance once someone had their sights on you in those days.

quote:
Also the 180 degree turn button doesn't need to be an option in the game. It's an option in the mouse and it's software. Pressing the button simply equates to the mouse telling itself it just did a 180 degree turn, without the user actually doing the movement. The game doesn't care what went on, it's simply told that you did a 180 degree turn.


That, IMHO, sounds dangerously close to cheating. That's not a level playing field at all. Next thing you know, they'll have a button specifically for circle strafing, so all the lame newb gamers don't have to learn how to do it manually.

Also, since gaming is a hobby for me, I don't need to "be hardcore" by buying pointless hardware. I'm perfectly confident that any good gamer can hang with the "hardcore" gamers who spend tons of money on hardware using just a plain keyboard and two button mouse with a scroll wheel. You put way too much emphasis on hardware.


RE: Gaming mice
By Emryse on 8/22/2007 8:27:11 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
I've never once had a need for a 180 degree button. Most games don't have an option for that anyways.


I would submit that perhaps the "180 degree button" imitates the same signal as would be relayed should one manually rotate their view very rapidly in the desired fashion.

At any rate, I don't think this mouse ranks with the best, but then again it doesn't appear to have been MS's intention for this product to do so... this is not to say it's a bad product - perhaps slightly better than average.


RE: Gaming mice
By ziggo on 8/22/2007 9:12:15 PM , Rating: 2
I find it intresting that they included a 180 turn button scripting capability in the first place. In the FPS that I play (RTCW:ET) they specifically disabled the quake command that let you script movements such as this.

This isn't the first time this has happened either. There used to be limits on how far you could adjust the Y sensitivity relative to the X so that you couldn't use a bind to virtually "lock" the cursor at headheight for flat combat situations. After logitech released some drivers that came around the same time as the MX500, it allowed these settings to be changed on the fly using a registry hack. The restrictions had to be removed so that hardware selection wouldnt become so pivotal to being able to play at a high level.

I guess the scripted movements are going to have to be re-enabled now.

I still have and use my old sidewinder force feedback joystick for BF2, though one of the buttons is starting to fail. 9 Years of use isnt bad though I suppose.


RE: Gaming mice
By rdeegvainl on 8/23/2007 2:36:47 AM , Rating: 2
Most interesting and gameplay funwise would be to get around that kind of headshot hack, would be to make characters of differing size in your game, that would make for some fun game play, larger characters that are faster runners due to long legs and smaller characters that are slower but smaller targets.


RE: Gaming mice
By Polynikes on 8/28/2007 9:38:22 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah, they could have buttons for all sorts of things, so all the "hardcore" gamers get their money out of their over-priced hardware! Let's see, there'd be a circle-strafe button, a bunny-hop button, a shoot as soon as your enemy breaks cover button... The possibilities would be endless!


RE: Gaming mice
By bhieb on 8/23/2007 11:52:07 AM , Rating: 2
According to this hands-on review, it is just a macro that you record once and replays each time. It does not really have anything to do with signaling, it just replays a mouse movement. And according to them it seems to be just fluff as it does not work as quickly as actually turning around. Of course these were not retail drivers so a lot can change.

http://hardware.gotfrag.com/portal/story/39380/


WTF!
By afkrotch on 8/22/2007 6:35:42 PM , Rating: 2
What is with that mouse? I've always like Microsoft mice. I've gone from the standard Optical mouse and am currently on the Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000. It's a pretty regular mouse that is easy to use with both hands. It's not overly complicated with like 50 buttons on the thing.

I've always wanted a higher DPI, which you could have gotten from the Laser Habu, but the design isn't like normal Microsoft mice. It takes it's look and feel from the Razor mice, which I don't really like, so I never bothered to get it.

This mouse just seems to take the cake. Sure some ppl will surely love this mouse. Tons of buttons, outrageous features, and so on. I'm just not one of them.




RE: WTF!
By hr824 on 8/22/07, Rating: 0