Shane Kim Interview; No Force Feedback for PS3?

[scooby_dooby]

You are dissapointed by this, or have I read the FUD wrong?

Shane Kim was spreading FUD basically, or so it seems. I'm not dissapointed by this being debunked at all, quite the opposite.

 

[NavNucST3]

Do remember Kim is doing some PR work here. During E3 MS made comments about Madden being exclusive and kind of led some to believe the same of GTA4. Basically don't count on them doing Sony's leg work in PR

You could be right, but considering how PR "leading" works, well, I guess we will know in the future.

TIMED exclusive for Madden, the football season starts before the other consoles ship, and for anyone that could hear, they said GTA would launch day one, with exclusive DOWNLOADABLE content.

 

[Crossbar]

.... But Logitech also makes wheels, and Sony probably has a license for their PS2 wheel and could always make an adapter for that (if it is not already USB).

Indeed it is already USB (I've got two of them ), so if they just support a driver in the new racing games you should be able to plug in your old Logitech FF wheel.

 

[blakjedi]

Wasnt it Moore who said first to 10 million wins? I dont think that is necessarily true.. I think MS is caught up in the belief that it was time that beat them rather than the PS brand's superior marketing or game catalogue... I think they are wrong about this but we'll see. If MS gets to 10 million this year (maybe) do they win? or do they stick by their other yardstick as to checking back with them on Jan 1, 2008?

I think that the triple bang of BioShock, Mass Effect, and Halo 3 plus a friggin movie (if its any good) may be what allows MS to declare "victory" in early 08. But without that movie and Halo... I think Playstation may have still had it in the bag.

 

[Powderkeg]

The only legal battle they lost was with Immersion over the implementation in the Dual Shock 2, so that really had nothing to do with "force feedback." I think the guy's just using both terms so people all recognize what he's talking about...?

The genuine force feedback from a driving wheel should not be impacted at all, and since I rather imagine it had to be implemented differently from controller rumble ANYway... I don't see driving wheels being hurt by this.

The patents for both rumble and Force Feedback are owned by Immersion Corporation. Sony chose not to license the technology after losing their latest lawsuit appeal.

And Force Feedback MUST be supported by the system itself. This is why MS didn't have a Force Feedback wheel with the original xbox. They never licensed the tech from Immersion so they couldn't include it in the Xbox, despite the fact that MS also owns a number of Force Feedback related patents.


And no, you cannot legally bypass the patent on a closed system like a console by claiming the wheel manufacturer has to support it. There is a hardware interaction between the console and the wheel, and that interaction is also covered by the patents. There is no way to make the game access the wheel without going through the console.

 

[mckmas8808]

Wasnt it Moore who said first to 10 million wins? I dont think that is necessarily true.. I think MS is caught up in the belief that it was time that beat them rather than the PS brand's superior marketing or game catalogue... I think they are wrong about this but we'll see. If MS gets to 10 million this year (maybe) do they win? or do they stick by their other yardstick as to checking back with them on Jan 1, 2008?

I think that the triple bang of BioShock, Mass Effect, and Halo 3 plus a friggin movie (if its any good) may be what allows MS to declare "victory" in early 08. But without that movie and Halo... I think Playstation may have still had it in the bag.

But supposely Bioshock is coming out for the PS3 too. And also you have to think about Japan. If Sony sells 15 million PS3s in Japan, while MS sells only 1 million that means Sony closed the 10 million (if MS gets there this year) unit gap in one territory alone.

That's what will cause a problem for MS. Japan.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Wasnt it Moore who said first to 10 million wins?

Moore's Law

 

[blakjedi]

But supposely Bioshock is coming out for the PS3 too. And also you have to think about Japan. If Sony sells 15 million PS3s in Japan, while MS sells only 1 million that means Sony closed the 10 million (if MS gets there this year) unit gap in one territory alone.

That's what will cause a problem for MS. Japan.

True... Unless India and China pick up on the x360 now... isnt MS going into India this year? I think that MS should focus on knocking S Korea out the park because they LOVE their online gaming... There are easier ways of making up for the loss of Japan than actually trying to refocus Japan on MS style gaming which they apparently dont want...

Halo 3 and a good movie will make MS hard to beat in 07

 

[Dave Baumann]

Wasnt it Moore who said first to 10 million wins?

Wasn't he originally saying more along the lines of "Historically, the first to 10M has won", not that it necessarily bears out this generation (but 10M is still an effective userbase for devs/publishers to take note of only a year after release).

 

[TheChefO]

(but 10M is still an effective userbase for devs/publishers to take note of only a year after release).

Along these lines does anyone have a figure showing how many developers are supporting each platform with number of titles to each platform to compare developer support?

 

[mckmas8808]

True... Unless India and China pick up on the x360 now... isnt MS going into India this year? I think that MS should focus on knocking S Korea out the park because they LOVE their online gaming... There are easier ways of making up for the loss of Japan than actually trying to refocus Japan on MS style gaming which they apparently dont want...

Halo 3 and a good movie will make MS hard to beat in 07

But with India and China aren't we now chartering into unknown territory? Why wouldn't the Chinese want the PS3 or Wii more? I mean we can't just start making up numbers in unknown gaming countries from nowhere.

 

[TheChefO]

But with India and China aren't we now chartering into unknown territory? Why wouldn't the Chinese want the PS3 or Wii more? I mean we can't just start making up numbers in unknown gaming countries from nowhere.

True the demand is unkown but they will buy some right? which is more than they are selling IN THOSE markets now. Those markets along with their existing markets will help them meet their installed base target.

 

[Arwin]

Now this is kind of interesting.

As far as I recall, Logitech holds certain patents on the Force Feedback technology it uses in its Wheel controllers and related drivers. I even remember that Microsoft had to withdraw its own force feedback wheel after Logitech sued them, and that the sour relations afters were an important cause for the original Xbox to lack force feedback drivers. Logitech only wanted to make their Force Feedback wheels compatible with the Xbox if Logitech could write the drivers themselves, but Microsoft insisted on creating the drivers themselves. Logitech refused, and so the original Xbox didn't support Force Feedback. Ever. Which is why you got no Logitech wheels for it, and all the wheels that did appear had silly names called ForceShock, which only used Rumble technology.

Now, however, a few things have changed. First of all, Logitech is releasing wheels that will be compatible with the 360. So something has been fixed here. Looking into this, I see that Logitech's wheels do indeed use Immersion technology.

"Immersion partners with Logitech to launch first Logitech Wingman force feedback gaming product. Since then, Logitech’s critically acclaimed line of Wingman gaming products using Immersion’s patented TouchSense® technology have grown to become the most successful line of force feedback products in the world. "

Another interesting bit is that Logitech acquired 10% of Immersion's shares when they started a joint project on producing force feedback enabled mice in 1998.

The two companies are closely related. But does this mean the PS3 will lose Force Feedback steering wheel support?

I'm not sure.

The Logitech 360 wheel is announced to be compatible with PS2 games as well, which seems to indicate that at least Logitech can still create Force Feedback wheels for Sony products. It seems very unlikely that there is a scenario in which that doesn't work the same for the PS3 - but with both Logitech and Microsoft now shareholders of Immersion, perhaps the two warmed up to each other so much that they've come up with a new strategy here.

For now though, I'm going to consider the DualShock 2 and related software separate from Logitech's licenced Immersion products and related software.

But it is an interesting concept to think about. If Microsoft would succeed in not only acquiring Force Feedback for their product (finally! could have done that a generation earlier, yes?), but getting that exclusively also (in the next gen, at least), that could be interesting.

 

[TheChefO]

getting that exclusively also (in the next gen, at least), that could be interesting.

How many of you racing fans would "jump ship" to the 360 if this were true?

 

[Arwin]

How many of you racing fans would "jump ship" to the 360 if this were true?

Remember also that PD has worked together with Logitech on the Driving Force Pro wheel specifically for Gran Turismo 4, and it was a tremendous success. Logitech never even officially supported it for the PC, but it does work with it and is considered one of the best wheels available even on that platform. That Logitech didn't even bother much for the PC market means that it has to have been very, very good for them on the PS2. (for more info on this wheel see also http://www.barrys-rigs-n-reviews.com/reviews/2006/hardware/dfpro/dfpro_1.htm )

So, if Gran Turismo remains exclusive to the PS3 - which does seem a bit likely doesn't it? - then they'll very likely keep making wheels for the PS3 and it will just be rumble that Sony loses a patent for (if of course they don't settle, that is - after all, Immersion has a lot to lose there, so what we're seeing, imho, is a good deal of hard negotiation going on). The new wheel that Logitech developed, with the clutch pedal and gearbox, also seems to be something that has Gran Turismo written all over it.

However, you never know, do you?

And so, to answer your question, if the 360 would be the only console platform to support the Driving Force Pro and its successor, then the 360 is likely to gain a lot of fans, especially as GT4 gamers have been starved for online gaming (though Race Driver satisfied their needs pretty well there).

So, yes, there would be a significant amount of hardcore racers that would jump ship. Though, mind you, another batch of them would go PC exclusively - many already do both GT4 and PC.

Mind you, these hardcore racers run in the thousands rather than millions.

 

[TheChefO]

Mind you, these hardcore racers run in the thousands rather than millions.

true but they are also influential to others they talk to regarding system of choice.

ie:
If x thousand people jump ship to 360 for x racing game because of FF then how many of their friends would do the same so they were on the same page WRT borrowing/trading games etc.?

How many of you are influenced by what system(s) your friends are getting? Perhaps coming to a consensus as a group on which system(s) to get etc? Or influencing them to get your system of choice?

Under the consensus/influence model (which I use with my friends) the wants/needs of the group are addressed. Even if you don't need/want a feature if your friend does then this gets dumped into the bin of which system is the "best".

Follow?

 

[NavNucST3]

true but they are also influential to others they talk to regarding system of choice.

ie:
If x thousand people jump ship to 360 for x racing game because of FF then how many of their friends would do the same so they were on the same page WRT borrowing/trading games etc.?

How many of you are influenced by what system(s) your friends are getting? Perhaps coming to a consensus as a group on which system(s) to get etc? Or influencing them to get your system of choice?

Under the consensus/influence model (which I use with my friends) the wants/needs of the group are addressed. Even if you don't need/want a feature if your friend does then this gets dumped into the bin of which system is the "best".

Follow?

I would say for the most part, everyone here comprises the influencers not the influencees.

 

[TheChefO]

I would say for the most part, everyone here comprises the influencers not the influencees.

ok but do you see what I'm saying? Just because you or one of your friends doesn't want a certain feature doesn't mean it isn't considered for the others in your group of friends.

 

[Powderkeg]

Remember also that PD has worked together with Logitech on the Driving Force Pro wheel specifically for Gran Turismo 4, and it was a tremendous success. Logitech never even officially supported it for the PC, but it does work with it and is considered one of the best wheels available even on that platform. That Logitech didn't even bother much for the PC market means that it has to have been very, very good for them on the PS2. (for more info on this wheel see also http://www.barrys-rigs-n-reviews.com/reviews/2006/hardware/dfpro/dfpro_1.htm )

So, if Gran Turismo remains exclusive to the PS3 - which does seem a bit likely doesn't it? - then they'll very likely keep making wheels for the PS3 and it will just be rumble that Sony loses a patent for (if of course they don't settle, that is - after all, Immersion has a lot to lose there, so what we're seeing, imho, is a good deal of hard negotiation going on). The new wheel that Logitech developed, with the clutch pedal and gearbox, also seems to be something that has Gran Turismo written all over it.

However, you never know, do you?

I think you are forgetting one very important thing here.

Polyphony Digital IS Sony. They are one in the same. Sony bought them out. So, if Sony doesn't pay for the tech then PD can't use it.

 

[Powderkeg]

Now this is kind of interesting.

As far as I recall, Logitech holds certain patents on the Force Feedback technology it uses in its Wheel controllers and related drivers. I even remember that Microsoft had to withdraw its own force feedback wheel after Logitech sued them, and that the sour relations afters were an important cause for the original Xbox to lack force feedback drivers. Logitech only wanted to make their Force Feedback wheels compatible with the Xbox if Logitech could write the drivers themselves, but Microsoft insisted on creating the drivers themselves. Logitech refused, and so the original Xbox didn't support Force Feedback. Ever. Which is why you got no Logitech wheels for it, and all the wheels that did appear had silly names called ForceShock, which only used Rumble technology.

Totally wrong.

MS and Immersion hold the various Force Feedback patents (Immersion holds most of them), Logitech simply licenses haptic tech from Immersion.

MS's lack of Force Feedback support in the original Xbox was due to MS's unwillingness to pay even more money to license the tech when only a tiny percentage of the Xbox owners would use it. They were, and still are losing tons of money on the Xbox, and didn't see Force Feedback support doing anything but causing them to lose even more.

That's why NOBODY, including MS themselves, ever made a Force Feedback wheel for the Xbox, even though MS did have Force Feedback PC wheels at the same time.

The two companies are closely related. But does this mean the PS3 will lose Force Feedback steering wheel support?

I'm not sure.

The Logitech 360 wheel is announced to be compatible with PS2 games as well, which seems to indicate that at least Logitech can still create Force Feedback wheels for Sony products.

Correction. They can release Force Feedback wheels for Sony legacy products that currently support Force Feedback.

The same cannot be said for future products where the support is unlicensed.