Finally: Sony and Immersion end litigation, enter into business agreement

[Carl B]

Personally I see the last year of this drama as Sony bringing the game to Immersion, basically willing to go scorched earth in order to get Immersion to move closer to their terms. Afterall, Immersion ultimately needs Sony a lot more than Sony needs Immersion, and if you look at the statements that have been coming out of Sony of late, everything has definitely been along the lines of Sony giving the finger to Immersion.

The terms indicated here seem to hint towards some sort of synergistic win-win scenario, so I'm glad it came to a resolution they both seem content with.

 

[avaya]

PAL......please be new standard controller.

 

[Crayon]

I don't think we're neccessarily going to get a Dual Shock 3.

Maybe this just opens the doors for applications like steering wheels? GT5 without FF support would be tragic.

 

[LunchBox]

if only motion sensing and force feedback go hand in hand...

 

[RobertR1]

About F'in time! Now give me back my rumble so I can enjoy my racing games as meant to be!

 

[bRoNx]

WTF? No more Immersion sponsored online surveys?

Oh well, I'm glad they both decided to get on with it. This drama has been boring for a while, so I'm glad they decided to settle this and pull this from the interweb. Here's hoping for a new DS3 controller with my PS3 on March 23rd. Hey, why not the batarang? Make it happen, so I won't have to endure gaming without rumble!

BTW, from the looks of the settlement, it looks like both took a hit in order to hook up, so - a win for (PS3) gamers?!

 

[temesgen]

Six axis does not use rechargable batteries so it is only a matter of time for the existing base to have to replace the controller with something new anyway so now that includes controllers that offer rumble. I would be supprised if Sony offers the next controller with a replaceable battery...

 

[Carl B]

Six axis does not use rechargable batteries so it is only a matter of time for the existing base to have to replace the controller with something new anyway so now that includes controllers that offer rumble. I would be supprised if Sony offers the next controller with a replaceable battery...

The battery technology used in these controllers is much improved from the older stuff we're used to, so they are much less prone to suffering from the "memory" effect. I'm sure that for the hardcore user eventually controllers charges will begin to expend noticeably more quickly, but for the time being I for one am glad that the battery tech is kept light and internal. I rather not deal with battery packs, battery replacement, etc...

 

[Diesel2]

About F'in time! Now give me back my rumble so I can enjoy my racing games as meant to be!

Racing games were meant to be played with a DFP or better!

 

[PARANOiA]

The battery technology used in these controllers is much improved from the older stuff we're used to, so they are much less prone to suffering from the "memory" effect. I'm sure that for the hardcore user eventually controllers charges will begin to expend noticeably more quickly, but for the time being I for one am glad that the battery tech is kept light and internal. I rather not deal with battery packs, battery replacement, etc...

I'd much rather deal with battery replacement than controller replacement Discarding a whole controller is not only a waste of money, but incredibly wasteful.

Granted, this appears to be the norm for the IPod generation. Battery dead? Buy a new machine. "Why mend when you can spend" said Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. This disappoints me greatly.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Maybe this just opens the doors for applications like steering wheels? GT5 without FF support would be tragic.

FF Wheels are already supported! However, that could have been something Immersion allowed as part of ongoing negotiations. We never sussed out who pays who in that respect.

 

[CEO]

Dual Sixaxis FTW? Share your thoughts.

 

[rabidrabbit]

I'd much rather deal with battery replacement than controller replacement Discarding a whole controller is not only a waste of money, but incredibly wasteful.

Granted, this appears to be the norm for the IPod generation. Battery dead? Buy a new machine. "Why mend when you can spend" said Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. This disappoints me greatly.

You're likely to wear out the buttons and switches about the same time your battery needs replacing anyway.

 

[DieH@rd]

Nice news. Now lets hope that MGS4 will have rumble feature.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

does this mean the UK systems are shipping with the DS3?

I'm sure we will see DS3 quite soon, but there is no way it'll make to the European launch (UK is not the Europe BTW) as the systems are already packed and on their way, it would be impossible to design, manufacture and repackage everything in few weeks.

Overall this is great news, rumble is a must imo. Now I can finally sleep at night...:smile:

 

[jonnyp]

So the lawsuit lasted long enough for the PS3 to launch without rumble as a standard feature in the controller or programed for games.

So how does Sony correct this? Send everyone with a PS3 a new controller and have the devs patch every current game to add rumble?

I think the damage is already done.

Haha, you were joking?



Right?

 

[archangelmorph]

WTF? No more Immersion sponsored online surveys?

Oh well, I'm glad they both decided to get on with it. This drama has been boring for a while, so I'm glad they decided to settle this and pull this from the interweb. Here's hoping for a new DS3 controller with my PS3 on March 23rd. Hey, why not the batarang? Make it happen, so I won't have to endure gaming without rumble!

BTW, from the looks of the settlement, it looks like both took a hit in order to hook up, so - a win for (PS3) gamers?!

I don't understand why some people here care so much about rumble..???

I'm sure most of you are probably PC gamers and I've never seen a mouse or keyboard shake when I've played a game..!?!

If people truely beleive rumble is such a big deal then they should just buy a fantastically-sized sub-woofer, crank up the volume to full and sit on the thing when they play..

 

[Arwin]

I don't think we're neccessarily going to get a Dual Shock 3.

Maybe this just opens the doors for applications like steering wheels? GT5 without FF support would be tragic.

These discussions were not related. I'm fairly certain games can get FF with a separate licence included in the game through Logitech - Logitech owns stock in Immersion and is an important partner, and Console games have become a significant revenue stream for them. Probably in these cases the licence is either paid by Logitech, or included in the price of the game. The FF driver in these cases is provided by Logitech, and not Sony (Sony is definitely a more open platform than Microsoft in this regard).

The GT:HD demo had its FF support pulled at the last minute suggests that the proper procedure would have been that per downloaded game a licence fee would have been required for FF support, which would have cost either Logitech or Sony dearly. They could have footed this bill, but with only a fraction of the downloads going to FF wheel owners, that would have cost a lot of money.

That this issue has been settled is still good news for wheel owners, mostly because it means that downloadable demos will now be more likely to support FF. Who knows we might even get an updated GT:HD demo for download to celebrate.

Sony has proven that you can introduce a new controller later. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft takes a cue from this and the two will both release a new controller around the same time, one which brings rumble to the PS3, and the other bringing some kind of motion control to the 360.

I'm willing to bet that MGS4 will be one of the first and most certain games to support the new controller.

Personally I don't care too much about vibration (FF on a wheel is another story), but I do think vibration goes very well with motion control.

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

Definately good news!

Hopefully they'll talk about this deal during GDC, or E3

I'd definately love to hear what phil harrison will have to say on future interviews after he said that "rumble was last gen tech"

 

[DJ12]

I think the additional quarterly payments hint to some sort of design agreement, possibly of a truly next gen force feedback system which will be featured exclusively in Sony hardware.

I do not think they will release a "Dual Shock" Sixasis for quite sometime myself.