Ahead of its time.

Usually we have to wallow in the past. It’s inherent in our business. We buy our Funyons with yesterday’s mistakes, the electronics industry’s has-beens and never-weres and what-could-they-possibly-have-been-thinkings. As for what’s happening now, or going to happen next? We’ll get to that in a few years when nobody cares anymore.

Today, though, we’re looking ahead. Frankly, even at this price, the SteelSeries Stratus Bluetooth Game Controller for iOS devices isn’t the kind of deal that’s going to crash our servers. Pretty much nobody plays smartphone games with an external controller at the moment. If you think it seems a little awkward, a little like overkill, to use a console-style controller to play games on your iPhone or iPod Touch, or even your iPad, you’re right. For now.

But that’s not the end of this story. Because the day is coming when our smartphones - which have already displaced our cameras and our media players and our GPSes, and are crowding out our laptops, desktops, and even TVs - are going to replace our game consoles, too.

In terms of processing power, smartphones are already only a generation or so behind consoles. There’s only one reason to upgrade your game console, while you’re already upgrading your phone every year or three anyway. So you’ll always have, essentially, the latest console in your pocket, or close to it. It’s gonna happen.

It can happen right now, if you have AppleTV, this controller, and an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad running iOS 7 or later. The SteelSeries Stratus is a little smaller than a console controller, but otherwise has the familiar array of sticks and buttons that any console gamer will recognize.

You’ll look like a genius for being on this way back in 2014. Or you could wait and buy this from us in 2018, after it’s been made obsolete by the second and third generations of iPhone game controllers. But believe us, it feels a lot better to be ahead of the curve for a change.