PS3's Lack of Rumble May Disappoint

Immersion Corporation, who you may recall from their rumble-controller suit against Sony, has released a study. Engadget reports that (somewhat unsurprisingly), it indicates gamers will miss the rumble feature in PS3. The 'SIXAXIS' gamepads planned for the PS3 will only have the 'tilt' feature, as far as is known so far. From the article: "Not only does the (completely unbiased) poll report that 72% of the 1,075 respondents agree vibration feedback enhances their game experience, it goes on to note that 59% of those surveyed would prefer rumble on the PS3 controller, while only 8% care about motion / tilt sensing (sorry, Nintendo). As if these numbers didn't paint a clear enough picture of the message Immersion is trying to convey, two further questions spell it out even more explicitly: when asked if the lack of rumble capabilities would affect their buying decisions ... 5% said that it would definitely cause them not to buy a PS3 and 32% claimed that they were less likely to pick one up for this reason and this reason alone. " GameDaily has a further, more detailed exploration of the study.

Comments

Re:I don't really like a rumble feature

[LoverOfJoy]

I've never played a game where you couldn't turn off rumble in the settings. I don't own a PS2, though. Is it common to be forced into experiencing badly implemented rumble for games?

Re:rumble with wireless controllers

[VJ42]

The Wii's controllers are wireles, and IIRC they have rumble.

Re:Some background please?

[hawridger]

Go ahead and quote him: Cnet article. A $26M settlement = license and 10% stake in Immersion for MS. Sony declined to pay up and got pounded with a $90M judgment.

Re:Reasoning?

[KDR_11k]

The reason is a patent dispute. Sony infringed Immersion's patent, MS copied them, Immersion notices and sues both, MS settles and buys a license while Sony decides to look tough and fight it out in court (not sure if they lost already or if the judgement is still pending). Since it wouldn't help their case they stopped infringing upon the patent with the PS3, adding tilt detection to have an excuse to claim that their new controller isn't worse. Nintendo is exempt from all this since they developed rumble independently from Immersion and have their own patents for their implementation.