Hori Betting On PS3 MMOs?

MMOs have played a pretty minor role on consoles to date, with Phantasy Star Online being the exception.  The PS3 could be soon change that though with The Agency, Final Fantasy XIV, DC Universe Online and Free Realms all due at some point.

While it has been over two years since John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment, said that consoles would see the arrival of an MMO that would rival the success of World of Warcraft, we are still awaiting the PS3’s first MMO.

Still, we are inching ever closer to the arrival of MMOs on the PS3 and what do dedicated PC MMO players always have (apart from monster multi-PC, multi-screen rigs)?  They have big keyboards, programmable gamepads and other such paraphernalia.

There are obviously no such peripherals for the PS3 yet, but with the games themselves advancing in development, Hori is working on a PS3 MMO controller.  Shown at E3 as a “concept model” you get a full size keyboard (in a fetching C64 aesthetic) with essentially the right half a a DS3 attached, plus L2 and R2 and two buttons I cannot identify.

It is paired with a separate controller replicating the left half of a DS3 and harbouring duplicates of the ‘X’ and ‘O’ face buttons and buttons for L1, L2, L3, R1, R2, R3.  As it is just a concept design there was no pricing or release information available.  You would imagine that Hori would aim to have it hit, Japanese shelves at least, when FFXIV lands (whenever that turns out to be).