Still wondering why Sony dumped Dual Shock
Still wondering why Sony dumped the Dual Shock from the PlayStation 3 lineup and added a feature that uses six axis motion sensors instead (which feels a lot like a bolt-on since most games don’t support it)? It’s more than likely got something to do with the ongoing patent infringement lawsuit filed against them by Immersion.
Pending Sony’s appeal, the judge has stayed the injunction, but Sony is still paying a compulsory license fee each quarter to Immersion—Immersion is hopeful that the appeal will be decided upon in their favor by the end of this year. With that in mind, many in the industry have found it quite curious that Sony’s newly announced motion-sensing PS3 controller contains no rumble functionality. According to an SCEA rep contacted by GameDaily BIZ, Sony maintains that “the new PS3 controller uses six axis motion sensors to move with the user’s body; because of this sensitivity it can’t use vibration.”
It would be a huge risk for Sony to go ahead with Dual Shock in the hope that they win the appeal because losing the appeal would mean that sales of the PS3 console could also be affected - something that Sony is bound to want to avoid..
It also seems that their claim to be having difficulty integrating Dual Shock with motion sensing is somewhat dubious too:
If Sony truly is having trouble successfully integrating vibration alongside motion-sensing technology, Immersion said that it would like to help. “Immersion would be happy to step in and solve their problem,” Viegas told GameDaily BIZ. “If it truly is a conflict between vibration and motion sensing, we have some of the world’s experts in the field of haptic technology or force feedback… and we already have three ways we know how to solve the problem, but we’re not willing to work with them until we’ve resolved this long, simmering legal battle. So if this is really a technical hurdle, we’re confident that we can solve this through filtering techniques, through processing techniques and through hardware modifications.”
Is it possible that Sony will, one way or another, reintroduce Dual Shock into their console lineup as soon as this legal mess is cleared up? Only time will tell.
