19th April 2011, 2:08 AM
I tend to rate the controllers based on the controller all by itself, it's raw potential, more than how it actually ended up being used. The 3D controller may not have been used much, but for me that doesn't change my opinion of it. It's true that the difference is that Dreamcast accessories actually were released, but again I'm just speaking of the controller's potential more than how it actually got used. The big question, as you mention, is just whether or not a signal can be sent to the controller as well as from it. If you've got those two things, you can pretty much attach whatever you want. I believe it could receive one. It's a continuous circuit, so it's just a matter of games being able to modify the circuit from connector to controller into pulses of some kind, at which point there's two way communication. Considering that the PS1 controllers, which originally had no reason to send output to the controller, were still eventually successfully modified with force feedback, I'm pretty sure it'd work out perfectly fine.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)