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PS3 Rumble Controller Confirmed

Posted by Zonk on from the rumble-and-tumble dept.

IGN was playing a build of the upcoming title Burnout: Paradise when they noticed something new about the controller in their hands: it was shaking. The rumble-equipped PlayStation 3 controller is almost certainly a reality at this point, with Kaz Harai's keynote tomorrow expected to officially announce the product. "The controller we were using to play the demo looked exactly like a standard Sixaxis, except that it had a sticker on the bottom that said 'RUMBLE.' It also felt notably heavier than the standard Sixaxis."

7 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. That's funny by wamerocity · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I remember when the PS3 first came out, the PR guy tried to spin the lack of Rumble as a good thing because it was "last generation." However, it turned out the company that they licensed the technology from would license it any longer and they finally came to terms a few months ago. PR is a funny thing. If anything, this will be good cause it will allow me to at least get rumble back in my ps2 games, a feature that I really missed. Now just to see how long before it hits the shelves and how much it will be. I really hope that this replaces the sixaxis and they just call it "the sixaxis rumble" or something silly so they don't have to increase the price much. Any word on whether the new controllers have a significantly bigger battery, or are they simply just wired?

    --
    "Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
  2. Adding Rumble helps, but please fix the rest... by trdrstv · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Ok, I missed Rumble (at least in MotorStorm), but please can you fix a few other things while you're at it?

    1) Sixaxis Tilt is Not nearly sensitive enough to be useful. Please figure out a Fix or Hire someone who worked on ExciteTruck to do it for you.

    2) The R2 & L2 Buttonie-trigger thing. Either make them proper buttons (like L1, R1), or triggers (like the 360), don't care which but this inbetween solution you have now is bad.

    3) Swap the left Analog and Dpad. MS, Nintendo and Sega all did so because it is more comfortable to play 3D games that way. Bolting the Dual analogs at the bottom made sense in the PS1 era, but not 2 gens later.

    4) User replaceable Battery. Make it AAA, AA, or Proprietary; I don't care which so long as I can swap it with another in a few seconds without disassembly.

    1. Re:Adding Rumble helps, but please fix the rest... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 3, Interesting

      5. Don't listen to this guy. Leave the D-Pad right where it is. It's 1000x better that way. If you're going to move them, put them in the same place on both sides of the controller. If you're going to move them up, you'll have to make the controller wider, otherwise your thumbs won't be properly aligned with the analog sticks.

      Don't listen to the guy who thinks unnecessary hand stress is 1000x better. No, really. Putting the most used control down and to the right means you have to bend your thumb outward away from it's natural configuration. The reason you don't put them in the same place on both sides is because on the right side you want the buttons to be where it is most natural to push them -- imagine if they put the 4 primary buttons where the right analog stick is now. Hard to hit them, right? Right, because it's an unnatural position. The goal is to have the most neutral hand position for the most common items. MS and N understand this.

      Back in the PS1, when the DPad was the most common item, Sony put the analog stick where it is for that reason. Keeping it out of the way of the DPad, so the DPad would be just as familiar and comfortable as it used to be. There was no excuse for keeping it in the same place on the PS2, and for the PS3 still having the mostly useless DPad where the thumb most naturally rests is idiotic. They keep it that way solely because of the brand recognition. But some people have convinced themselves that these historical reasons that de-emphasized the analog stick are actually ergonomic reasons that favor the analog stick. That the current location is the ideal spot for the analog stick, even though it was originally put in that spot exactly because it isn't the ideal spot for primary input.

      If you really think down and to the right is the best, most optimal and comfortable position for the primary input method, why did zero controllers have that setup with the Dpad? The original PS1 controller didn't put the D-pad or buttons in that area, they put it in the upward position so that it's easiest to reach, just like everyone else.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    2. Re:Adding Rumble helps, but please fix the rest... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Do you seriously believe that no one actually likes the controllers?

      Don't be ridiculous. Of course people actually like it. I think a lot of them would also like a controller with the analog control swapped even more if they gave it a chance. And I think there are those who wouldn't prefer the analog-up configuration, even if that was the controller Sony had originally came out with. Yet that wasn't the controller came out with, they came out with Dual Shock, and that controller is the one many people cut their teeth on analog gaming with. Our preferences frequently depend on tons of subjective things, like nostalgia, what we're used to, as opposed to more objective things, like hand stress. There's nothing wrong with having that preference. Nothing wrong with saying "I just like it".

      There is something wrong with acting like a historical quirk is actually a superior design, that the design could not be improved in simple ways. Look at your relaxed hand, and the angle made between thumb and forefinger. Imagine your forefinger wrapped around the outside of a controller. Your thumb would naturally be resting slightly below the tip of your index finger. Create a controller to put into this relaxed hand, and you'd get the primary controls placed where they are on the Xbox, Gamecube, heck even the pre-dualshock and just about every game pad ever made.

      There's a reason that nobody who was designing a controller without the historical baggage of the Dual Shock put the primary control where Sony did. There's a reason that Sony did put it there, and it was aforementioned historical baggage, not because it was the best place to put it if you were considering a from-scratch design. The whole point of the Dual Shock design was that the analog was not considered the primary control. Deny that, and yeah, I'm going to refer to Sony fans convincing themselves that whatever Sony does is inherently the best.

      Oh hey, I just remembered there's a counterexample to the rule -- the Wii Classic controller also has the dpad up and the left analog down. Oddly enough, it too has historical baggage in the sense that it is designed to play games which range from the NES to the GC. Like the Dual Shock, it's designed with the d-pad as primary for that reason, though in my brief experience with it I think it's even less comfortable than Dual Shock. Good thing I have my GC controller -- though I'll probably use the wiimote for NES titles, since using the DPad on the GC controller is just as uncomfortable as using the analog stick on the Dual Shock.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
  3. Battery life? by neumayr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'd imagine that rumble feature to be quite power hungry, so what will that do to sixaxis' battery life? Get it down to wiimote level or even worse?

    --
    Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
  4. Missing the Game of the Year... by trdrstv · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Halo 3, Mass Effect, Too Human, Fable 2, the next Burnout game, the Warhammer RTS, the next Splinter Cell, the Orange Box, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Fallout 3...

    Seriously. There is WAY more coming out for the system than Halo 3...why do people keep focusing on just that?

    What? No love for 2007's GOTY? Not to outright disrespect the other games, but I'll probably put more time into that than Halo3, Smash Bros and Warhawk combined.

  5. Re:weight by pthor1231 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm convinced that there is a direct correlation in people's minds about the quality of a product, and the heft of it. The light something is, it just feels cheaper. Even with a titanium watch, it feels cheaper than other metal band watches. This definitely extends into the electronics area. I think some of it is the fact that there are very few ways you can judge the quality of devices, so anything that is available, you latch onto.