Last year gaming peripherals developer PowerA ventured into mobile gaming controllers with the Moga Mobile, a small, Android-compatible controller that acts as a gaming interface for smartphones and tablets. PowerA now has a more mainstream gaming controller on the horizon called the Moga Pro, now modeled after the Xbox 360’s controller for better global familiarity. It’s not out until next month, but we were fortunate enough to get our hands on it at PAX East 2013. I sat down with product developer Sal Parra and learned more about PowerA’s support for console-like experiences on a mobile platform.

As you can see from our included images, the Moga Pro’s button layout mimics that of the Xbox 360 controller. Xbox’s controllers over the years haven’t changed much, unlike a console lineup such as Nintendo’s, so playing it safe here aims to minimize the learning curve. Personally, I found it easy to continue my console gaming with the Xbox controllers (even the clunky one that released with the original Xbox in 2001), so putting a Moga Pro in my hands didn’t throw me off at all.

As mentioned in earlier-posted coverage of PAX East, the biggest demand from all of you in a recent poll we ran was to provide more on-site, POV coverage of conventions; it’s tough to really understand what these events are like without simply being here, and even then, we normally don’t really realize what’s transpired until just after the event concludes. They’re fast-paced, hectic weekends, and though shows like CES & PAX East are utterly exhausting (I’ve slept 9 hours total in 3 nights and we’ve conducted about 20 interviews), it’s always worth it. Always.

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PAX is all about the community, and having just come out of CES, it’s a nice change and one that we readily welcome every year. Rather than cater to the media and exhibitors, PAX is very much about the attendees; we media people don’t get special access to anything (other than exhibitors through existing contacts), so we’ll wait in the same lines for panels and concerts as everyone else. That single element of PAX really highlights how they feel about the consumer experience: It’s King.

Through the video and text in this article, I’ll hopefully convey just a tiny bit of what it’s like to attend large gaming conventions like PAX East.

A manufacturer of cases, power supplies, coolers, and case fans, Enermax has recently branched out into some new territory in the DIY build market. Enermax’s new landgrabs include fan-less (passive) power supplies, liquid cooling, and even a portable amplifier. We looked at some of their new offerings while at PAX East and were particularly intrigued by some of the features in the Ostrog GT & Hoplite cases as well Enermax’s special edition air coolers.  

Here’s a recap of Enermax’s US market hardware offerings, including the Ostrog GT, Hoplite, ELC120 & ELC240 CLCs, and the T20/T40 air coolers.

Following Rosewill’s Throne Industrial case mod is tough, but if anyone can afford to have it done, it's Cooler Master. The company didn’t have anything brand new to show, but did have the same case mods on display as were shown when we visited them at CES. This time, however, we had a camera and mic available – here’s what Cooler Mater has to say about the case mods and their creator, Lee Harrington.

One of the most-requested items of exploration from our readers has been to provide a better POV/on-site look at the conventions we attend. There’s good reason to demand such content, too: Along with many other sites, we spend much of our time producing content around specific interviews, booths, products, or announcements, none of which really provide a feel for the greater, zoomed-out look at the convention.

One of many statues at PAX East 2013 -- this one's from League of Legends.

In our first PAXCast (of two) for the weekend, we previewed the first playable Unreal Engine 4 game, provided some quick first impressions on GRID 2, and discussed the role and presence of the hardware sector at PAX East 2013.

The video can be found below!