Augmented reality is surely a positive direction for all console manufactures, the one that use’s and stimulates the most sense will be the most interactive and fun (in theory). The loss of DualShock is a loss of one of those sense and experience, SIXAXIS will sure be a new experience, but a very different one at that.

Either way as a humble European I eagerly wait for the official launch, rumble or not!

My thinking is that a complete controller should have both rumble and motion sensing, that what next generation should be about, and only Nintendo has done it. MS and Sony are up there in graphics but they lack next gen controllers.

As someone rightly pointed out on this web site that for a truly immersive experience both the input and response are necessary. Absence of one of them takes away from the experience. So Rumble is a must, it actually should be standard. Motion sensing is the next thing, and then the graphics. All three make for a true immersive and next gen experience.

Right now I see Sony slowly realizing that they are being left behing by MS and Nintendo, and one of the reasons is lack of good games, especially exclusives. So imagine, new developers making games for both MS and Sony, have to incorporate rumble in their games because of the xbox 360 `s rumble capability. And people are going to go for rumble enabled games on 360 and no one would buy PS3 games that are also on 360, because of the rumble. Example baseball games, football games rumble really adds to the experience. Imagine pitching in baseball against your friend on split screen, rumble enables you to throw a ball outside the strike zone without your friend knowing about it, now how would that be accomplished in a ps3? In shooter games, rumble makes the controller vibrate making it more fun (thats why I like FPS on consoles personally, otherwise controlwise you can`t beat mouse/keyboard….but motion sensing might be the answer in that department)

Even Hideo Kojima, creater of metal gear Solid series wishes he had the rumble option when designing the game MGS4.

These things are and will hurt Sony in a race, in which it has had a poor start.

Secondly, no-one, including Phil Harrison seems to have mentioned the obvious battery loss that a rumble feature would bring to a wireless controller.

And Finally, does anyone remember what happened with the original Playstation controller? They of course had a simple digital controller when the console was first released.

Then Namco came along and made the NeGcon. This THIRD PARTY controller could twist in the middle which could be used to steer cars in an ANALOGUE way.

Not to be outdone, Sony lifted their idea and made the Dual Analogue controller. Which was later turned into the Dual Shock.

All i can say to this is that history does repeat itself. I believe it will take a brave third party company to create a Rumble/motion sensing controller. But when this happens, Sony, coupled with a drop in prices, computer game support for this new feature and an end to the legal problem, will produce the SIXAXISDUALSHOCK3.

It is a sad fact that in this situation, companies such as Sony do not listen to the little people, its consumers. They wait to see what the games industry want. If enough games support a rumble feature for some third party controller, then they WILL release an official one to cash in.

All they need to do is have the tool set available to devs and a thrid party will step up and sell a controller with rumble. It’s like sony if forcing our hands since by their own admission we could have it but they don’t want us to pay too much. Yeah right. If that was the case they’d have the fully featured controller as a seperate purchase but no as it stands will have to live without rumble this generation or buy games like GTA IV for xbox if we want the full experience.

Thanks for dropping the ball on us. Heck even lil ole Nintendo got motion sensing and vibration in one controller and you guys claim you’ve worked on motion sensing for years. Oh and don’t forget at E3 you had a motion sensing controller with rumble.

I wanted to ring in on the loss of rumble in PS3. Sony what are you thinking? You need all the sells you can get and this is not the way to get into peoples pockets. Lets say i’m a gamer and I am planning on buying a PS3. I’m young and vunerable to peer pressure. I want a powerful console that I can brag about. Well I wouldn’t care about Blu-Ray or HDMI if i’m still in high school. I could use movie money (blu-ray) as game money. Why would care about 1080p at that age?
See how losing rumble would look to someone who only wants to experience games on the PS3. See how losing rumble make Sony look vunerable to its competition. I can hear it now “$600 for a PS3 and it doesn’t even have rumble.” “What a rip off.” That is what the opposition will use to steal potential sales from Sony.

I do believe that some games will become less immersive without rumble.

No, the real answer that Sony dances around is the fact that Immersion won a settlement in court due to a patent on the vibration technology. PR representatives are likely not allowed to talk about pending litigation. If they’re trying to be upfront about communicating with the public, they could at least acknowledge that yes, it’s also an (ongoing) legal issue.

Frankly, they’ll already be spending at least $90 million anyways, plus additional legal fees for the court case. Sometimes, as Microsoft did, it’s better to “pay the man.”

While it’s not a make-or-break decision for the console’s success, it’s disappointing that among all the talk of “True HD” and Blu-Ray, Sony seems to be stepping back from this one. Third parties probably won’t even be able to fill the void, because there are likely no API’s for generating controller rumble.