PS3 Finally Ready to Rumble?

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.

Comments

yay!

[sandmtyh]

Good to know sony is willing to take losses on the new console to make it "better"

Re:wow

[jimstapleton]

or certain recreational devices...

Wait, how long have those been around with that feature? Longer than patents for such things? Prior art maybe?

Re:O Rly?

[hansamurai]

BIZ: A lot of gamers, including myself, enjoy the controller's motion sensing at times, but we still miss rumble. If gamers want it and are vocal enough, will Sony reintroduce the force feedback at some point?

PH: We have no plans to do so in the standard controller that ships with PlayStation 3. I believe that the Sixaxis controller offers game designers and developers far more opportunity for future innovation than rumble ever did. Now, rumble I think was the last generation feature; it's not the next-generation feature. I think motion sensitivity is. And we don't see the need to do that. Having said that, there will be specific game function controllers, potentially like steering wheels that do include vibration or feedback function--not from us but from third parties.

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=1534 2&ncid=AOLGAM000500000000026

Where's Nintendo in this?

[pembo13]

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

Re:Where's Nintendo in this?

[wynler]

Nintendo's rumble-pak technology was based on a different design to a patent that Nintendo holds.

Let's see....

[cdneng2]

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.

Re:Let's see....

[tzhuge]

I think that's backwards. Product development knows exactly what they're doing. They followed the guidelines provided marketing, legal and the executives provided to develop a product. It's not their fault that those guidelines weren't well thought out or that marketing could do a better job by just keeping their mouths shut.

1. Legal: "We haven't settled the lawsuit yet. No rumble. -> Dev: no rumble -> Marketing: "Oh it's so last gen... blah blah"
2. Executive: "Use Blu-Ray because we're invested in it." -> Dev: Blu-Ray -> Marketing: "Games are like so massive it blows your mind man! BLUUUU-RAY!"
3. Executive: "Use Cell... because ?" -> Dev: Cell -> Executive: "IT'S LIKE THE MATRIX, BUT REAL!"
4. Profit

Re:Let's see....

[tlhIngan]

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.

Re:What did Mircosoft pay?

[gEvil (beta)]

Or who knows maybe Sony got a deal by putting up a fight.

I don't think so. Sony was sued for $300 in "damages", which we know is always on the high end of things. They're settling for half of that. From the numbers in the article, it looks like they could have licensed the tech for about 50 million (or less), since they've already paid 30 million in compulsory license fees, plus another 20ish for licensing through 2009. Of course, this also isn't factoring in any court fees or their own lawyer costs.

Re:They should have noticed

[jusdisgi]

Really, when Microsoft rolls over and just pays out the license fee for something, you should start thinking that you could be in the wrong.

You mean like when they paid SCO?