years ago 1990 hillsboro oregon united states website official site thrustmaster is an american designer developer and manufacturer of joysticks game controllers and steering wheels for pcs and video gaming consoles alike . it has many licensing agreements with third party prestigious brands such as ferrari top gun beretta splinter cell and the u.s. air force as well as licensing some products under xbox license . very recently teaming up with skype . thrustmaster also has a range of playstation licensed wheels . thrustmaster has developed a new range of communication products appealing to the growing internet telephone market . currently they have two packs of accessories available the internet phone & video kit and internet phone kit . history edit norm winningstad helped found thrustmaster in 1990 in hillsboro oregon . 1 by early 1991 the company began advertising the thrustmaster weapons control system in computer magazines . 2 it worked mainly on developing flight control for simulation on ibm compatible computers . the company has utilized the hotas system for use in computer flight simulation and has modeled some controllers after flight controls of real aircraft . the company made their name in making the expensive but high quality hotas controllers in middle 1990s . in 1999 thrustmaster became a part of the guillemot corporation group in france . in addition to pc thrustmaster also produces racing peripherals for playstation and xbox consoles . hotas cougar edit formerly one of their most expensive joysticks is the hotas cougar an exact reproduction of both the throttle and stick that is used in the real f 16 fighter aircraft . 3 the product features rugged all steel construction and numerous programming possibilities but is hampered by low quality potentiometers leading to a thriving replacement industry . some of the devices have had reported quality problems including play in the centering springs and the tendency of the speedbrake switch to break due to a manufacturing defect this has been fixed on later serial numbers . many independent companies have produced replacement components for the cougar to address these issues . these include redesigned gimbals that center more firmly contactless potentiometers to replace worn originals and even several force controlled mods that make the stick sense pressure without moving like a real f 16 stick . besides fixing complaints with the original product these aftermarket parts have the potential to extend the life of the cougar well past the time when thrustmaster stops supporting it but usually at double even triple the price of the original purchase . however the market for such mods tends to be limited and many customers keep their cougars as they came from the factory . the hotas cougar was replaced by the hotas warthog in 2010 . references edit norm winningstad high tech pioneer and philanthropist in oregon dies at 85 . the oregonian . november 24 2010 . retrieved 30 november 2010 . enjoy the best in authentic response . computer gaming world advertisement . january 1991 . p. 59 . retrieved 17 november 2013 . falcon 4.0 allied force . cbs news . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title thrustmaster & oldid 742918773 categories computing input devicesvideo game controllerscompanies based in hillsboro oregoncompanies established in 19901990 establishments in oregon navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages deutschespa olmagyarnederlands edit links this page was last modified on 6 october 2016 at 17 01 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view