Five Gadgets That Make Playing Games Feel New Again

Your gaming setup is probably a screen, a console, and a controller. It works. You stopped noticing it years ago.

These five gadgets make you notice again.

KORG Gadget turns your Switch into a music studio. You get 16 synths and drum machines, and you twist the Joy-Con to turn knobs and play notes. It buzzes back at you while you do it. Up to four people can jam on one split screen.

Playdate is a yellow handheld with a crank on the side. Some games use the crank as the control. The screen is black and white, and new games arrive as surprise drops, two a week. It cost $179 at launch, and Season Three was announced for later this year.

Backbone One clips around your phone and turns it into a handheld. Pair it with Xbox Cloud Gaming, GeForce Now, or PlayStation Remote Play, and the big game runs somewhere else while you play it on the bus.

8BitDo FlipPad is a thin Game Boy style controller that plugs into your phone's USB-C port and rests on the screen. It costs $29.99, it's wired, and there's no battery to charge. Thick phone cases can block the connection.

Nex Playground is a little box with a camera that tracks up to four players. No controllers. Yes, it's basically Kinect, and Engadget said it's what Kinect wanted to be. The box costs $249 and most games need a Play Pass subscription. You also need about six feet of clear floor.

Which of these would you actually set up? And what's the strangest thing you've ever played a game on?