Play with a controller & mouse all at once with wild new peripheral

An insane patent looks to manufacture a device that is one-half controller and one-half mouse. It hopes to merge the best of console and PC gaming all in one, but did anyone stop to ask if we actually need it?

As it goes with patents in the gaming industry, a great deal of wild and wacky ideas get submitted, but few ever actually see the light of day. From Sony patenting a new feature that would allow for in-game rewind, to innovative lip-syncing technology, we’ve seen all manner of ideas over the years.

They are mostly just that, however, ideas, with very few concepts making it to market. So do bear that in mind as we look at this wild controller design.

Have you ever thought of what it might be like to keep the feel of analog stick-based movement while pairing it with the accuracy of a mouse for the camera? Well, a New York resident has gone ahead and not only designed such a contraption, but filed to patent it as well.

Crazy patent puts a literal mouse on your controller

This wild patent was filed back on January 11, 2025, and only just publicized on July 17, 2025. It was unearthed on Tumblr of all places, as PCGamer discovered.

The device is described as a “multi-functional gaming input device with combined mouse and joystick.” In essence, it combines the best part of a standard controller – the picture very clearly takes after a PS5 DualSense – with the best part of playing on PC, the mouse.

It seeks to “marry the precision of a mouse with the intuitive control of a joystick,” which, on paper, sounds like a noble cause. However, the design put forth reveals how such a creation would actually look.

For the mouse part to function, you somehow have to hold up the controller half in your left hand, then balance a blocky mousepad in your right. It appears to only really be usable if it’s rested on a flat surface, which wouldn’t be all too comfortable for prolonged gaming sessions.

Making it all the more odd, the mouse doesn’t actually function as a real mouse with a laser sensor underneath. Instead, it kind of functions like a palm-sized analog stick, with a contraption inside the mousepad translating your motions. As such, you don’t appear to be able to freely move the mouse around, or say, lift it off the pad. It’s stuck to the center.

Of course, there’s no guarantee this proposed device ever actually makes it to market, so there’s no telling just how effective the idea might’ve been in practice. We’ll be first in line if it does materialize though, just out of sheer curiosity.