The Gcon3 (or GunCon3) from Namco was the third version of the popular Gcon series released for the PlayStation consoles. This version was released for the PS3 and allowed you to play games such as Time Crisis 4 and Razing Storm.
This was the first in the series that did not use the traditional light gun technology. Tvs by the point it was released were moving away from the CRT models that allowed lightguns to work so the GCon3 used a pair of Infra Red LED’s positioned on the television and a camera in the gun itself to work out where you were pointing.
By all accounts, this was one of the best implementations of this technology but even so, it was no where near as good as traditional light guns for line of sight aiming mainly due to problems with drift when you change positions.
One interesting feature of the GunCon3 was that it also had a joystick on the side that let you control movement Mainly for a FPS extra game in Time Crisis 4.
Further links and notes on the Namco Gcon3
Linux drivers for the Guncon3 lightgun – Allow you to use it as a joystick
https://github.com/beardypig/guncon3
And if you happen to be a real nerd, this discussion on the drivers from the same author is worth a read:
https://www.beardypig.com/2016/01/06/guncon3/
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Philip is a life long gamer and enthusiast.
He first started gaming in the 80’s on an Atari 2600 and has never looked back. He has owned just about every major console since then.
His passion for retro gaming and emulation sprung from trying to recapture the excitement of playing light gun games like Time Crisis and Point Blank in the arcades by emulating them on a PC and has grown from there into a love of emulation and Retro Gaming.
Can you use this on pc?
I’m sure as I haven’t tried it out but there may be some drivers around. I did see some talk about someone trying to write some drivers but there was some difficulty because of the way the communication was encrypted I think.
I found these drivers out there but I have not used them as I don’t have a Gcon3 so If someone wants to try them out and let me know, I’d appreciate it!
https://retpaweekend.weebly.com/guncon-3-pc-drivers.html
Also, there are some drivers for Linux that can be found here: https://github.com/beardypig/guncon3