Questions about the Unreleased HPI Pro Elite Controller

[V-SNES]

Does anyone that we know of actually own this controller or the memory card? I see that the pictures we do have on Nuon Dome are from CES 2001 (from Thomas Solutions NUON Photo CD) but do we know what happened to them? Also, how close were they to being ready for release? Were they functional or were they more so mockups? Looking at the pictures, it looks like there is just a round nub where the joystick is supposed to be which is kind of weird. With regards to the memory cards, were they going to work similar to Sega Dreamcast VMUs in that they slot into the controller and have a screen on it (though some of them don't)? In conjunction, it looks like some of the memory cards had some sort of removable data card or something? Not sure what I'm looking at there.

 

[Stephen]

Awesome - I have never seen that before. Quite similar to the Dreamcast controller.

 

[The Helper]

I think that became the Dreamcast controller

 

[V-SNES]

Update: I was reading about the Nuon version of Bust a Move 4 on Nuon Dome and it said that the game's demo and controller setup screen features the HPI Pro Elite controller (as in the pics below taken from Nuon Dome). Given that the game was pretty much complete as far as we know, I guess it's likely that the HPI Pro Elite controller was about ready for release too. Also, I wonder if the game was going to have memory card support. Given the HPI Pro controller's inclusion, it would have made sense if it did.

 

[Stephen]

I think that became the Dreamcast controller

I'm not sure about that. The Dreamcast was released in 1999, the photos from that controller are from 2001.

 

[V-SNES]

I'm not sure about that. The Dreamcast was released in 1999, the photos from that controller are from 2001.

Yeah, that's right. It was actually the Sega Saturn 3D Pad that had greatly influenced the Dreamcast's controller design. The HPI Pro Elite controller likely in turn took inspiration from the Dreamcast controller. This would be consistent with how the HPI Stealth controller took inspiration from the n64 controller.