Microsoft SideWinder

• 1. Introduction

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  Microsoft SideWinder launched in October 1995 with two joysticks that would set the template for PC gaming peripherals in the years that followed. The 3D Pro and the Standard joystick arrived on the same day, but they were aiming at very different players. That split personality - cutting-edge technology alongside budget options, specialist hardware alongside mainstream appeal - would define everything the SideWinder brand built over the next eight years.

  What happened to a line that grew to include joysticks, gamepads, steering wheels, a voice chat hockey puck, and a motion-sensing controller? And why did a brand that Microsoft killed in 2003 come back to life just four years later, pointing in an entirely different direction?

• 2. The 3D Pro's Hybrid Gamble

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  The 3D Pro arrived carrying a design philosophy that set it apart from every rival on the shelf in 1995. Rather than build another analog joystick prone to drift and CPU overhead, Microsoft fitted it with a digital and optical tracking mechanism and a digital communication method running over the standard analog gameport. The result was a stick that promised accuracy its competitors could not match.

  The problem was that digital mode required software support that most games did not yet provide. DOS games ran on analog assumptions, and the only major title supporting the 3D Pro's digital mode out of the box was MechWarrior 2. Some sound card gameports, including those made by Gravis, struggled with the stick in digital mode entirely.

  Microsoft's answer was an analog emulation fallback. A switch on the base let the 3D Pro pretend to be either a CH Flightstick Pro or a Thrustmaster FCS, whichever the player needed. In that mode the four base buttons stopped working and manual calibration was required, but at least the stick would function.

  The geometric, low-key design that gave the 3D Pro its neutral look also created a practical problem. Ergonomics were sacrificed for form, and players who used the stick for long sessions often found it uncomfortable. Despite that, the 3D Pro found a loyal audience among MechWarrior and Descent players. It was one of the few multi-button joysticks those games supported natively, and it did not need a keyboard pass-through for extra buttons. That combination was rare enough in 1995 to build a following that persists to this day, which eventually led to someone creating a USB adapter to keep aging 3D Pros running on modern hardware.

• 3. Refining the Formula

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  Fred Iyc and Edie Adams are two of the 17 people whose signatures are hidden inside the Precision Pro, on the base coverplate. That detail speaks to how personal the next joystick design became. Microsoft introduced the Precision Pro to correct the 3D Pro's shortcomings: the awkward geometric shape gave way to rounded contours, the rectangular base buttons moved to the top of the base in rounder forms, and a wheel-based throttle replaced the slider.

  The electronics were refined too. The Precision Pro used light sensors instead of potentiometers, which meant no calibration was required and no electronically moving parts. The only wear points were the mechanical pivots on the throttle and the joystick itself, giving the design a theoretically unlimited service life. A shift button doubled the number of available button combinations at a stroke.

  Timing helped the Precision Pro more than the engineering did. USB was spreading through consumer computers at almost the same moment Microsoft released the stick, and when a USB-compatible version followed - fitted with additional circuitry and bundled with a converter - the old gameport compatibility problems became much easier to manage. Sales and review scores both climbed past what the 3D Pro had managed.

  One vulnerability remained. In rare cases the stick would build up a static charge in its electronics. Discharging it required either a complex process or simply leaving the stick unpowered for several hours. The Precision Pro 2 that followed quietly reintroduced potentiometers to cut costs, trading that near-unlimited lifespan for a design that would eventually wear out.

• 4. Force Feedback and MIDI Tricks

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  Microsoft acquired force feedback technology from a company called EXOS, Inc., and built the Force Feedback Pro on the Precision Pro's chassis. Motors added to the internals pushed the weight and size noticeably beyond the Precision Pro, making the two joysticks easy to tell apart just by picking them up.

  Getting the PC to talk back to the joystick required an engineering workaround that few players ever knew about. The standard joystick port was designed for input only, so Microsoft used the MIDI capabilities built into the same port. Creative Labs had first made those capabilities widely available in their early sound cards so musicians could plug in MIDI instruments. Force feedback events on the SideWinder traveled as messages on MIDI channel 6, with effect data uploaded through SysEx messages. On the oldest PCs, where gameports lacked MIDI functionality entirely, force feedback simply did not work.

  The Force Feedback 2, which replaced the Pro, swapped the external power brick for an internal power supply, shrunk the motors slightly, and removed the shift button. It came in two visual varieties: one with a silver trigger and textured hard plastic grip, and an updated version with translucent red trigger, buttons three and four, and a rubberized grip coating. The Force Feedback 2 built a reputation for durability that outlasted the entire SideWinder line. On eBay, Force Feedback 2 joysticks regularly sold for more than their original retail price of $109.

• 5. Beyond Joysticks

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  The Freestyle Pro, released in 1998, worked by sensing the physical position of the controller itself. Tilting the pad forward, backward, or sideways moved the character in the game. Sony would not introduce similar motion sensing to a mainstream gamepad until the PlayStation 3 SIXAXIS in 2006, making the Freestyle Pro an early experiment in that direction. Motocross Madness, designed specifically for the controller and bundled with it, was built to take advantage of the motion input.

  The Game Voice took a different approach to peripheral design entirely. Shaped like a hockey puck, it sat between the sound card and the player's headset, with four channel buttons for directing voice chat to individual teammates or the whole team. Microsoft recommended it for use with the speech recognition feature in Microsoft Office XP. By 2003 the device had lost ground to downloadable software like Ventrilo and TeamSpeak, which only charged whoever ran the server rather than requiring every participant to own the hardware.

  The Strategic Commander was aimed at real-time strategy players who wanted a left-hand controller to pair with a mouse. Contoured to the left hand and shaped like a large mouse, it placed six programmable command buttons within reach of the index, middle, and ring fingers, with three more near the thumb. Three shift buttons expanded the total possible commands to 24 per configuration. The upper section moved in three axes, which also made it useful in first-person shooters for looking and aiming while the right hand handled the mouse. One application built at Carnegie Mellon University used it as a controller for navigating large social network maps.

• 6. Discontinuation and Return

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  Microsoft pulled the entire first-generation SideWinder lineup in 2003, pointing to poor sales. The company turned its attention to a different strategy: partnering with Xbox hardware for Windows users. The wired Xbox 360 controller and a Wireless Gaming Receiver designed for PC became Microsoft's answer for Windows Vista gamers.

  In August 2007, the SideWinder name returned. Microsoft had collaborated with Razer on two products sold under the plain Microsoft Hardware brand, a gaming mouse called the Habu and a keyboard called the Reclusa, before deciding to revive SideWinder for higher-end gaming gear. The SideWinder Mouse launched in October 2007 at a retail price of $80. It featured adjustable weights, programmable macro mode, on-the-fly DPI adjustment, and a built-in LCD display, the first ever incorporated into a mouse.

  The second generation expanded quickly. The SideWinder X6 keyboard arrived in 2008 with 30 programmable macro keys, a detachable numpad, and backlighting. A companion mouse, the X5, followed the same year at a lower price and without the LCD. February 2009 brought the X8, a wireless mouse with Microsoft's BlueTrack tracking technology and a maximum sensitivity of 4000 DPI. The X4 keyboard, released in March 2010, added anti-ghosting but dropped the detachable numpad permanently. By October 2014, Microsoft was no longer offering any SideWinder gaming mice or keyboards in the United States.