WiiNintendo

An engaging article provided by Nintendojo focused on the Nintendo aspect of the rumble feature, and that Nintendo’s own creation of force feedback won’t infringe on Immersion.

Rumbling controllers can cost corporations a lot of money.

I’m sure you all remember that Nintendo was the first company to actually introduce this form of tactile feedback with the N64’s Rumble Pak. That’s not just partisanship, here — it’s the literal truth. And yet somehow Immersion Corp. is able to sue Sony for patent infringement, even though we all know Nintendo was first in that direction.

G’huhhhh?

I know, that doesn’t make any sense. Shouldn’t it be Nintendo suing the pants off of Sony? Almost certainly, but it seems that, in fact, the Dual Shock controller uses a version of Immersion’s rumble technology and not Nintendo’s.

Which leads to an interesting question. Why isn’t Sony including rumble in the Dual Shock 3, again? Oh, right, they said it’s because there’s no way to include a rumble function in a controller with a tilt sensor, because that’s far too sophisticated. And, you know what, I believe them. When something breaks the mold as much as the Dual Shock 3 obviously has, being able to control a game by tilt alone, there’s simply no way that a rumble function could also be included.

Except for WarioWare Twisted

Oh, that’s right. I forgot that Nintendo found a way to use both tilt and rumble on a Game Boy game. Does that mean that the Dual Shock 3 isn’t as sophisticated as a portable game cartridge?

Without answering that poignant and somewhat leading question, I’ll just go on to say that WarioWare Twisted notwithstanding, Nintendo’s own motion-sensitive controller, which, in terms of functionality, is a lot more capable than the Dual Shock 3, is also able to handle both rumble and motion sensitivity. So what, exactly, is the motivation behind leaving rumble completely out of the PS3?$$$

You got it. From a strictly physical standpoint, including a rumble feature in the controller really isn’t that expensive. Just look at how much current controllers cost — the cost of rumbling is included with the price. The problem is that Sony would have to shell out upwards of ninety million smackers in order to get back in Immersion’s good graces, and they’re just not willing to do that.

Another quick dig, here: If I’m paying six hundred dollars for a console, I expect its controllers to be fully-featured.

Where does that leave Nintendo? In a very good position, fortunately. You see, Nintendo created its own rumble technology from scratch back in the day, and that’s still what’s being used. And, since Wii will be using that and can somehow magically also implement motion sensitivity into the controllers as well, we’ll be sitting pretty. Especially once we hear what that launch price is going to be.

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