Sony’s PS3 Controller Mess
Published by Budda May 15th, 2006 in Gadgets, Consoles & Video Gaming.
You may have missed anything Sony had to say at this years E3 thanks to the huge buzz Nintendo created. So what was the big announcement from Sony about the Playstation 3?
Well they’re happy to say they’ve copied the Nintendo Wii controller feature. They’ve also dumped the boomerang controller design shown at E3 2005 too, and have gone back to the tried and tested PS2 Dual-shock controller, but tweaked it a little.
The L2 and R2 buttons have been enlarged, and now have “increased depth in stroke for more subtle control in games”. In addition, the angle of the two joysticks has been slightly broadened.
The controller also features a USB port for wired control and charging. According to Sony, the cable can be attached and detached at any time.
Other features of the controller include Bluetooth functionality for linking to the console itself.
However Sony failed to mention that the DualShock’s rumble feature has been dropped, as the vibration “interferes with information detected by the sensor.” says Sony.
However we later found that Sony are telling porkies - Sony’s battle with Immersion Corporation over technology that makes gaming controllers vibrate has taken a turn for the worse. So it’s probably in their interest not to offer a feature they may not be able to provide to the consumer later this year.
The PS3 is down for a European release on November 17th, priced £340 with a 20GB hard drive, or £410 for the 60GB model.
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Immersion says they can make force feedback and the motion sensors work together
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/mike_antonucci/index.html
Actually its not true to say that the rumble feature has been dropped from the PS3. It has only been dropped from Sony’s PS3 controller. Subsequent to E3, a Sony exec admitted that the rumble feature will still work with 3rd party controllers.
That would still put Sony in violation of the Immersion’s patents and make the system vulnerable to an injunction by Immersion.
I think the E3 statement was just to pre-empt questions being raised during E3 on the potential patent violation, diverting attention from what Sony wanted to highlight.
Deeper analysis of what the PS3 actually supports shows that Sony still have to deal with Immersion.