Sony defends loss of rumble

[wraggster]

Sony's Phil Harrison says he has no regrets at all about not including rumble functionality in the PlayStation 3 SIXAXIS controller. But is he bothered about the overuse of capital letters?

"Not at all," he told Eurogamer's Rob Fahey recently, although to be fair he was talking about whether Sony has had any second thoughts about ditching rumble. "I think that the next generation interfaces that can be created built on SIXAXIS motion sensitivity give tremendous gameplay benefits that far outweigh a reactive vibration function.

"The vibration function is the game sending a single channel of feedback to the player - six axis of input puts the player in control in a much richer, deeper way. So, game design can go in much more interesting directions as a result of that than from receiving a single input from the game itself."

The obvious retort to which is surely Sony could just have included both? Immersion, which makes rumble and force feedback technology, has said they reckon it's pretty easy. "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!"

[masterpaul]

Rumble pack is important. They can't throw away a thing like that. Especially if there Motion Sensoring is not that good and will be mostly forgotten by the developers.

Why is Rumble Important...For example:

Helps racing games feel more realistic even with [sony's not so good] motion sensoring.

[Shrygue]

I don't use PlayStation 2 and can't get PS3 anyway but I would agree that the rumble feature on controllers is so not good. Sony, you are acomplete b*****d for removing something brilliant.

[V3N0M]

See the thing is they will release a new controller with rumble support sooner or later...and for a high price that people are willing to pay. Because we all know that they could make it work even with the motion sensor. Like Nintendo has. But its all a game in which the ultimate goal is to make as much money as possible.

[Adrenalin]

See the thing is they will release a new controller with rumble support sooner or later...and for a high price that people are willing to pay.

Sony won't release any with rumble support, i guarantee it. (Can't say the same for 3rd parties, but it'd still be useless as few if any games would support the feature)

This is due to their conflict with immersion. Sony and Microsoft infringed on their rumble design or something. (unlike nintendo, who didn't get sured cuz they r too cool) the difference being that microsoft wasn't $#@!y like sony and decwided to settle.