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PS3 Finally Ready to Rumble?
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Mar 02, 2007 09:01 AM
from the for-the-love-of-all-that-is-holy-thank-you dept.
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.
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Controller Patent Suit Won Against Sony 38 comments
ivec writes "Immersion Corporation announced that the jury returned a verdict favorable to Immersion in its patent infringement suit against Sony Computer Entertainment. The jury found that Sony infringed all the asserted claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,275,213 and 6,424,333 and that those claims were valid.
I was surprised how recent these filings were (2000 and 2001). The patents cover 'vibrating devices' such as joysticks."
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Immersion Queries Lack Of PS3 Controller Rumble 117 comments
simoniker writes "Following the announcement that the PS3 controller will lack a rumble feature, Gamasutra spoke to Victor Viegas of Immersion Corporation, which is currently suing Sony over the PS2 rumble functionality, about what he feels the company's reasoning truly is. He claims of the PS3 controller having both rumble and tilt: 'I don't believe it's a very difficult problem to solve', and also said that his employees thought the PS3 controller 'felt light, that it felt cheap and flimsy, and that it lacked weight or substance.'"
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PS3's Lack of Rumble May Disappoint 201 comments
Immersion Corporation, who you may recall from their rumble-controller suit against Sony, has released a study. Engadget reports that (somewhat unsurprisingly), it indicates gamers will miss the rumble feature in PS3. The 'SIXAXIS' gamepads planned for the PS3 will only have the 'tilt' feature, as far as is known so far. From the article: "Not only does the (completely unbiased) poll report that 72% of the 1,075 respondents agree vibration feedback enhances their game experience, it goes on to note that 59% of those surveyed would prefer rumble on the PS3 controller, while only 8% care about motion / tilt sensing (sorry, Nintendo). As if these numbers didn't paint a clear enough picture of the message Immersion is trying to convey, two further questions spell it out even more explicitly: when asked if the lack of rumble capabilities would affect their buying decisions ... 5% said that it would definitely cause them not to buy a PS3 and 32% claimed that they were less likely to pick one up for this reason and this reason alone. " GameDaily has a further, more detailed exploration of the study.
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Why Can't Motion and Rumble Get Along? 113 comments
LifesBlood writes to mention coverage on GameDaily of a contentious controller-related issue. Kaz Hirai, SCEA's president, is claiming there is no rumble in the SIXAXIS controller because of prohibitive cost issues. President of Immersion Corporation Victor Veigas, on the other hand, disagrees. As the company holding the haptic controller rumble patent, he says that the technology could be included for a very reasonable price. From his statements: "If you remember, the day after they announced they were going to take vibration out of their controller I said that we'd be happy to work with them to solve the technical problem, and our engineers in less than a day had come up with three solutions; one is filtering and the other is processing and neither one is incrementally an increase in the cost. Both are using software to filter out the different commands--tilt vs. vibration--so that both can work side by side, and neither solution will add an increase to the cost of the system... We knew how to technically solve their problems and now we know how to do it without adding any incremental cost."
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Sony Defends Rumble Loss 145 comments
Eurogamer reports on comments from Sony defending the loss of rumble in the SIXAXIS controller. "'I think the caveat to that statement always has to be based on the fact that when we make a pad, we're making maybe 150, 200 million of them,' Harrison explains. 'So it has to be done at a price, and it has to be done at a volume that fits our production requirements. I think the decision that we've made to build in the SIXAXIS functionality, and Bluetooth wireless, and great battery life, and all the other functionality that comes with it, far outweighs the chatter that we're getting on vibration. And, it's incredibly light! Just pick it up!'"
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Sony's Harrison In No Rush to Lower PS3 Price 107 comments
njkid1 passed on a link to a GameDaily interview they conducted at DICE with Phil Harrison, SCE WorldWide Studios President. Harrison stays mostly positive throughout the article, pointing out that the availability of consoles is a sign of a healthy supply chain. He denigrates rumble in controllers as a 'last generation' feature, and specifically discusses the company's decision-making process for lowering prices: "The PS3 technology, as with any of our platforms, starts off life at a high price and then we engineer cost out of it. And that process is an investment that you make to combine chips into a single chip or to reduce components or combine components and redesign things, and that investment is part of our planned R&D effort to reduce cost. At the appropriate time and when we can afford to, the business model of the industry is to pass those savings onto the consumer, but we're a long way away from doing that yet."
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Microsoft Sues Immersion Over Rumble Deal 48 comments
Waaay back in 2003, Microsoft settled with Immersion over the rumble technology found in their Xbox game controllers. Now, Microsoft is filing suit against Immersion, claiming that the company has not paid Microsoft 'based on certain business and IP licensing arrangements.' CNet has the release, and links over to a Seattle PI blog entry with some investigative digging by Todd Bishop. "One provision of the Microsoft-Immersion settlement wasn't reported widely at the time, if at all: Microsoft negotiated rights to a payment from Immersion -- a refund, of sorts -- if Immersion settled its case with Sony ... Here's where the new dispute arises: On March 1, nearly four years after the Microsoft settlement, Sony and Immersion announced that they had 'agreed to conclude their patent litigation at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and have entered into a new business agreement to explore the inclusion of Immersion technology in PlayStation format products.' ... while Immersion and Sony have agreed to conclude their patent litigation, they don't use the word 'settlement,' describing it instead as a business agreement."
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wow (Score:2, Funny)
Re:wow (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, how long have those been around with that feature? Longer than patents for such things? Prior art maybe?
Parent
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Maybe you should be rude to him instead? Or maybe yourself?
Soon to be released on PR Newswire (Score:2)
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Their patent is for video games.
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Unless I'm completely mistaken about that, a cell phone's vibration feature is very unlikely to fall under the same patent, even when used for games.
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The rumble pack for the Nintendo 64 and the one for the game boy both came out years before and were patented before the immersion vibration patent. So Nintendo is getting a free ride because they were actually there first and immersion doesn't want to start a feud over who actually owns the idea of rumble in games.
yay! (Score:3, Funny)
They should have noticed (Score:3, Informative)
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Re:They should have noticed (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Parent
What did Mircosoft pay? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What did Mircosoft pay? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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"Under the deal, Microsoft will pay Immersion $26 million for licensing rights and for a stake in the company [20 for licensing and a 6million "investment" from microsoft, Immersion also was allowed to borrow 9 million and pay microsoft back with stock], Immersion said Tuesday."
Buuut I'm not sure what the original claim asked for soo, who knows.
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Re:What did Microsoft pay? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Nintendo did it first.
And seriously, "game controllers and other devices to vibrate in response to certain events that happen during a game" - how hard is it to think of that? Cellphones, pagers and vibrators were already vibrating in response to certain events. It's a patent that didn't require much to think of, and should never have been awarded.
Where's Nintendo in this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Where's Nintendo in this? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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Let's see.... (Score:5, Interesting)
So let's see, rumble technology is soooo last generation [cubed3.com], 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 [1up.com].)
Our supply system is so good [igniq.com], that we have PS3s sitting on people's shelves. (Although I defy anyone of you from trying to find any PS3s! [penny-arcade.com])
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.
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While product developement isn't perfect, many of their problems come from ridiculous requirements from disconnected marketers and management. Kaz Hirai or Ken Kutaragi may have some technical know-how, but most of the people in the chain won't, or if they do it's likely out of date. As such, requirements not "mired" in reality will be given to the developers.
I'm pretty sure at some point the marketers angrily summmoned the hardware folks to a meeting, asking them how the hell they th
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Sony's PR department reminds me of the wacky Iraqi Information Minister during the war. He just says things that are the opposite of the truth and does it with a straight face.
I'm no video game marketing expert, but don't try to di
Re:Let's see.... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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However, this case is all about settling the damages related to sales of PS2 controllers and has nothing to with the PS3 now that the design has been changed. Microsoft's settlement is far less than Sony's for two reasons- they settled earlier in the process and, most importantly, Sony sold a hell of a lot more PS2 rumble cont
Great (Score:2, Troll)
Finkployd
YRO? (Score:2)
Sad to see Sony cave into the patent trolls... (Score:2)
This will benefit PS3 owners, but the public ultimately lost.
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Care to share some of those sources? It sounds like it would be interesting reading.
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So Microsoft settles for 26 million [com.com] 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.
Re:O Rly? (Score:4, Informative)
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=153
Parent
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Wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess trolls of a feather flock together. =)
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Do Immersion actually make any products, or do they license out rumble technology?
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But I don't see any actual products, just products by other companies that licensed their technology. [www.immersion.com] I guess if they made a piece of hardware that Logitech just sticks in their joystick that would be one thing, but their website is pretty vague about what Immersion itself actually creates. Theres a lot of talk about licensing, and I did find a snippet about some middleware, but thats about it. I'm not saying that they don't have their own products, but their site doesn't seem to indicate whether or not they actually develop the hardware or technology, thus my original question.
Going out on a limb here, but I don't think that in itself would necessarily qualify them patent trolls. The point of patents is specifically to protect inventors without investors - they have a good idea but are unable to develop it, or are unable to compete with bigger companies who could manufacture and sell the product for less. The whole point of patents is to allow inventors to license them to other people. What makes somebody a patent troll is when that's their business model - they don't develop
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But will it be worth $832?
FYI the PS3 is £425 in the UK which is how I got to the above number.
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If I'm right, listed U.S. prices don't normally include sales tax; and however much- if any- they have to pay is irrelevant, since Sony don't get any of that money (nor have any choice in whether to charge it or not).