Xbox Announces Pizza-Scented Controllers

Video Games

Gaming never smelled this good… well, depending on the toppings. In a bit of cross-promotional genius, Xbox is having a contest where a select few will win Xbox controllers designed to promote the upcoming animated film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. The controllers will be designed to look like they’re covered in green ooze – like the mutagen that created the Turtles – and feature one of the Heroes in a Half Shell. But that’s not all: the controllers will smell like pizza, the Turtles’ favorite food. The Xbox website describes the feature like this:

“Satisfy your hunger for kicking butt with the world’s first ever pizza-scented controller! Designed to deliver the smell of the Turtles’ beloved meal to your game time, these exclusive Xbox Wireless Controllers come with a built-in scent diffuser shaped like a slice of delicious New York ‘za. The controller comes in four variations, each representing the signature colors, weapons, and personality of a Turtle brother: Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo.”

First of all, “’za”? Really? You can’t say the whole word, Spicoli? (Just kidding; Spicoli is awesome and understands there are limits to surfer lingo. He went an entire pizza-related scene without saying “‘za” once, like a legend.)

But in terms of the controllers, from the odd way some of this is worded, I think it means that you can use those pizza-shaped protrusions to control the scent, which makes sense because nobody wants a controller that smells all the time. This is a great idea. I wouldn’t want one – especially one designed like that awful-looking movie – but it’s a cool way to get people interested in Mutant Mayhem. Making it a contest with a limited number of controllers is even better because it gets people’s enthusiasm and anticipation pumping, which will probably transfer to the film. It’s like a cooler version of Happy Meal toys, and it fits with a property like the Turtles. I imagine the day will come when these controllers become collectors’ items, although I doubt the smell feature will still be working at that point. These could be the new Batman Forever mugs from McDonald’s, only less functional because there’ll have been twelve new versions of the Xbox at that point, and there’s no way these will be compatible with whatever the new one is at the time.

If you’re interested, you can enter the contest by following the Xbox Game Pass Twitter account and retweeting the official sweepstakes tweet.