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PS3 Finally Ready to Rumble?

Posted by Zonk on from the for-the-love-of-all-that-is-holy-thank-you dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Sony has finally settled its longstanding legal dispute over infringement of Immersion Corporation's force feedback patents, which reportedly led to Sony's decision to remove rumble technology from the PS3 controller, by agreeing to pay Immersion at least $150.3 million in damages and royalties. The agreement presumably will result in rumble and perhaps other of Immersion's force-feedback technologies being incorporated in future Sony controllers. Microsoft previously settled a similar lawsuit brought by Immersion, but Sony hung on tenaciously despite complaints about its controller products and disappointing PS3 sales." There's no guarantee that the tech will show up in the Sixaxis controller, of course. After all, rumble is a 'last-gen' feature.

7 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. O Rly? by EveryNickIsTaken · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Didn't Sony say that the rumble feature was "current-gen" technology and not "next-gen" technology, and that was why they were no longer using or supporting it?

  2. What did Mircosoft pay? by GrayCalx · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone know what Microsoft paid Immersion? I'd like to know if they saved anything by just owning up and paying for it. Or who knows maybe Sony got a deal by putting up a fight.

  3. Where's Nintendo in this? by pembo13 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm curious as to why the guys didn't go after Nintendo - not that I am want them to, just curious.

    --
    "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
  4. Let's see.... by cdneng2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So let's see, rumble technology is soooo last generation, but we've made an expensive agreement to offer it for anything new we've developed. We can force anyone who's rich enough to have bought a PS3 to buy new controllers to upgrade. (If they really want this ancient technology.)

    PS3 owners should be really exploiting the motion sensitivity of the PS3 as this is sooo current generation. So current generation that our developers haven't made many games for it. (Although the Wii is obviously a gimmick.)

    Our supply system is so good, that we have PS3s sitting on people's shelves. (Although I defy anyone of you from trying to find any PS3s!)

    I feel so sorry for the SONY PR department. I honestly don't think the Sony Playstation development department knows what they're doing at all with the PS3 anymore. The PR department is running around trying cover up the Sony Product Development blunders with every step they take.

    1. Re:Let's see.... by tlhIngan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      PS3 owners should be really exploiting the motion sensitivity of the PS3 as this is sooo current generation. So current generation that our developers haven't made many games for it. (Although the Wii is obviously a gimmick.)


      Having taken apart my PS3's controller to clean it, I'd have to disagree.

      First of all - there's no way SIXAXIS was designed for manufacturing (when you build millions, you tend to do a hardware revision for manufacturability - save the assembly worker 5 minutes can be huge (can mean she builds another unit in say, 30 minutes), or find a way to save a penny or a dime... (which save you $10,000 or $100,000 per million units)). There are so many fiddly little pieces that are almost symmetrical that you really need a +10 agility boost just to put the thing together. There are also three circuitboards in it - mainboard, button flexi-board, and motion sensor board (take note - this is important). Sure you do it "next revision", but still.

      Secondly, because the motion sensor board is on a separate PCB, it's connected via wires, covered in foam tape, and stuffed in a little alcove on the button chassis. The alcove wasn't designed to hold a circuit board - it's just a little square area. Which means the board is more likely than not to be skewed when its inserted into it. This skew alone makes it difficult to design really good motion sensing games because the accellerometer's axes are all aligned in a random orientation (the alcove doesn't provide any sort of orientation slots, either). Nintendo's Wiimote has the sensor soldered to the main PCB, so the only variance is how the pick'n'place machine puts parts down, and plastic tolerance, but it'll be fairly closely aligned. Sony's design can mean the sensor is oriented quite randomly, and that "up" is "down" to the sensor and what not (or more likely, "down-right" or "down-left"). Oddly enough, I'm sure the space on the main PCB occupied by the motion sensor's 4pin connector is larger than the sensor chip itself. I suspect that somewhere along the manufacturing line the SIXAXIS undergoes some high accellerations (which can destroy the tiny MEMS in the accellerometer if mounted improperly - usually even dropping the sensor on the floor can do it) - perhaps when the populating is done it's all tossed into a big container and the shock of the boards hitting the walls and other boards could damage a large number of them.

      So without calibration, the motion sensor is fairly useless if the player has to figure out how to rotate the controller to get the motion it needs.

      Fun trivia - the PlayStation logo is designed to light up - the button material below it is translucent and pokes down throught he button chassis to two pads on the main circuitboard - an LED is supposed to go there, but isn't populated. Wonder why that changed... it really would look nicer if it was lit up.
    2. Re:Let's see.... by c4miles · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Orientation of the motion sensor circuit board is irrelevant. There is a constant 'acceleration' due to gravity that can be used as a baseline to zero the accelerometers.

  5. Re:Sony Teaches A Patent Extornionist A Lesson by Rycross · · Score: 1, Interesting

    So Microsoft settles for 26 million and they caved, but Sony settles for 150 million and its a great victory? Thats quite the spin there.

    I don't know why an absolutely huge Sony fanboy is going around calling other people fanboys. Seriously, I hope you're employed by Sony, because its sad to think that someone could be so devoted to a company.