It’s happened to all of us. The clock on a multiplayer game is ticking down. The score is so close. The win is up to you, and you choke. It’s not because your skills aren’t up to snuff. Your hands just slipped. Sometimes sweaty hands happen during normal play too. It’s a hot day and you just can’t keep your hands firmly planted on the controller, whether it’s a first-person shooter, a visual novel, or a puzzle platformer.
The Nyko Intercooler Grip is a fan for your hands that attaches directly to the bottom of your controller, fitting flush with the existing contours of the DualShock 4. It’s a simple device, an intake fan that blows air through four slits located in front of and behind the controller grips, cooling your hand near the base of your thumbs and fingers. Keeping your controller from slipping isn’t necessarily about cooling, but about airflow, and the Nyko Intercooler Grip effectively keeps air moving around your hands during gaming sessions. This simple nature comes with a few setbacks though. The fan sits directly over the headphone jack, so you’ll either have to use a USB/Bluetooth wireless headset, or go without. It seems like it would have been simple to run a small extension cable through the unit and provide an audio output jack on the bottom, and its omission means that gamers who rely on the headphone jack will have a choice to make. My guess is they’re going to choose a headset over this fan...