One of the biggest things keeping cell phone games from being anything more than a nice distraction while you're on the can at work is the fact that those button layouts flat-out suck for gaming. I once excitedly downloaded Mega Man to my V710 (note to self: get a new phone) only to discover it was basically unplayable and I had just tossed another $5 into the bottomless, ravenous maw of Verizon Wireless.

This concept design looks to make phones a little more game-friendly. By popping the center button out into an analog joystick, it makes your phone much more capable at controlling games, if stopping substantially short of making it full-out game comfortable. Will we see this design on phones in the future? Who knows (it's tough to trust any design website with a .ru extension), but it certainly looks better than most phone's game controls out there now. –Adam Frucci

IndustrialDesign.ru [via Core 77]

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