Final PS3 Controller Quietly Loses Rumble
Force Feedback is no longer a feature in the PlayStation 3 controller. Sony accounts for this because it says it would interfere with it’s tilt sensor, but that’s garbage. The rumble has been removed because Sony lost a very serious lawsuit against the Immersion corporation which hold patents on rumble technology. In the end, it looks like Sony decided not to pay Immersion license fees for future systems and, as a result, there will be no more rumble in Sony controllers.
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Now, that’s plain silly. Of course, I don’t understand fully how the patent law works, but couldn’t Sony inexpensively develop an alternative rumble technology? For that matter, do the XBox 360 controllers have rumble? (I haven’t played one…)
It looks like the patent is pretty broad. I just think it’s that Microsoft and Nintendo were willing to pay the fee and sony was not.
“PS3 motion/rumble TOGETHER could happen!”
“The head of the company currently suing Sony for PS2 vibration patent infringement (Victor Viegas of Immersion) had this to say Monday:
“Viegas said that if Sony wants to discuss the problem, he’s sure his company could eliminate any technical conflict between having both the motion sensitivity and the vibration effect in a PS3 controller and that Immersion also is ready to provide a “next-generation” level of force feedback for the console.”
from: http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/mike_antonucci/index.html