Power Glove

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The Power Glove is a controller accessory for the Nintendo Entertainment System designed by the team of Grant Goddard and Sam Davis for Abrams/Gentile Entertainment, made by Mattel in the United States and PAX in Japan. Introduced in 1989, it was the first peripheral interface controller to recreate human hand movements on a television or computer screen. ^[1]

The glove had a traditional D-pad on the forearm as well as a program button and buttons labeled 0-9. A person would hit the program button and a numbered button to do various things (such as increase or decrease the firing rate of the A and B buttons). Along with the controller, a gamer could move his or her hand in various movements to control a character on-screen.

It was based on the patented technology of the VPL Dataglove, but with many modifications that allowed it to be used with slow hardware and sold at an affordable price. Where the Dataglove could detect yaw, pitch and roll, used fiber optic sensors to detect finger flexure and had a resolution of 256 positions (8 bits) per 5 fingers, the Power Glove could only detect roll, and used sensors coated with conductive ink yielding a resolution of 4 positions (2 bits) per 4 fingers. ^[2] This allowed the Power Glove to store all the finger flexure information in a single byte. ^[3]

Only two games were released with specific features for use with the Power Glove, Super Glove Ball, a 3D Breakout clone, and Bad Street Brawler, a difficult to control Double Dragon clone, playable with the standard NES controller, but allowing exclusive moves with the glove. These two games were branded as part of the "Power Glove Gaming Series." Two more games, Glove Pilot and Manipulator Glove Adventure, were announced but never released. Super Glove Ball was never released in Japan. Since no games ever retailed in Japan, the Power Glove was sold only as an alternative controller. This decision hurt sales and eventually caused PAX to declare bankruptcy.

[edit] References in popular culture

Freddy Krueger uses a "Power Glove" (in reality, his own signature razor-tipped glove with various lights and buttons attached) to kill Breckin Meyer's character, whom he had trapped in a video game, in 1991's Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. An article in Nintendo Power magazine, released after the film, featured an interview with "Krueger" actor Robert Englund, who claimed he had installed "retractable blades" on his own Power Glove at home. ^[4]
In The Wizard, Lucas Barton is an avid Nintendo fan who likes using the Power Glove. At one point, he commented "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad."
In the movie Beethoven one of the main characters is seen playing Super Mario Bros. 3 with the power glove.
The "Power Glove" is the name of a Legend of Zelda item that appeared in A Link to the Past.
In an X-Play Halloween Episode, multiple host are held captive, with Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb in a room having to name the top 10 scariest video games, or else the "Power Gloves" on their arms will explode. In the end, the power gloves exploded, but only ended up removing their arms.
In the Internet-based show Pure Pwnage, one of the villains always wears a Power Glove on his right hand and uses it for attacking.
In the song Cutsman by HORSE the band, references to the Power Glove are made in the intro and outro of the song.
In video game based cartoon Captain N: The Game Master, the Power Glove served as an all-knowing deity.