Sony not talking about rumble

by Alexander Sliwinski on Jun 18th 2007 10:00AM

Sony has refused comment on whether a PS3 controller with rumble is coming. GI.biz says that neither Sony Computer Entertainment of America nor Europe would comment on stories that began circulating last week of an impending rumble feature.

It's really such a silly story not to comment on. It's like watching someone making a cake, asking them what they're doing and they say, "Nothing." And it sure looks like that cake is vibrating. We don't know if this rumble feature is supposed to be some big Min-E3 reveal, but we're hopeful that an announcement is due soon. If so, we're wondering if Sony has a great PR message set up explaining why early adopters would want to pay for new controllers. Or maybe, and this would be shocking, Sony could set up a reasonable exchange program to send in your old Sixaxis for a new one. Yeah, sounds crazy, but at least it would diminish hard feelings.

Source

Tags: playstation, ps3, rumble, sixaxis, sony

Reader Comments (66)

Get ready to buy new controllers. ;)

Wasn't there an article not long ago mentioning how rumble might shorten the battery life too much to be acceptable? That doesn't mean that it won't happen, but it's a good reason not to mention anything yet. Think of all the bitching if they anounce that they might be working on it, then they say that they aren't going to do it.

Who gives a @#$%? Sony blew it this gen. Anybody really want a PS3? What happens when it can't move 5 mil this Christmas? It won't move 1 mil till then for sure.

Usual joystiq MO. Good Sony news about Blockbuster, so they place a story trying to bash Sony about not talking about Rumble. Why would they talk about Rumble until they were getting ready to roll it out? Nice try Joystiq.

Lol thats hilarious. For some reason I don't even think sony is going to change anything. Has it actually been confirmed?

And to be honest rumble is probably the LEAST of sony's worries.

I'd personally be more concerned about MGS4 and FFXIII. Not to mention the guaranteed hits that both Nintendo and Microsoft will be throwing out this fall.

Wasn't the original plan with the controllers, that because the batteries aren't replacable you send it in and they give you a refurbished one when the battery breaks free of charge. If that is true they will do the same thing for the non-rumble controllers if they have any sense.

But when the PS came out it didn't have analogues or rumble, that didn't stop people buying them when they came out and they became standard from the moment they relased them in competition with Nintendo. Sounds familiar to me.

Sony arent going to "announce" rumble SIXAXI until the very last possible moment. Announcing an upgraded controller that makes a current piece of hardware completely obsolute is ridiculous. This announcement would stop any current-generation SIXAXIS sales dead in their tracks.

Any such announcement would be a very stupid

I'll take motion controls vs. rumble any day of the week.

Sony and MS blew this gen.... MS has their failure rate... They arn't disclosing the numbers because then they would be forced into a recall... And they rather we pay for the repairs... and PS3 just straight up screwed it up in every way... Nintendo's only defence is they at least arn't claiming to have the best anything....

itsumiro,

I am a mechanical engineer and have pondered this issue for many hours, went over countless concepts and discussed it with multiple industry experts.

I have come up with a brilliant and innovative strategy for Sony to add rumble to their controller without losing any battery life. Get ready, because this will blow you away.

USE A HIGHER CAPACITY BATTERY. Der da der!

Remember when Sony said they couldn't put rumble in because of motion, and that turned out to be complete BS. Now they are trying to tell us that batter life is killing them. That doesn't make any sense.

That is, unless they are thinking of a rumble pack add-on, instead of a true controller redesign.

Wouldn't it be the ultimate irony if Sony, who previously dismissed rumble as a "last gen feature", later came out with a rumble periphreal add-on ala N64?

Seriously. What the HELL are you doing, Sony?

Intentless,

Except for the fact that MS pays for most of the fixes anyways. If they so rather we paid for fixes, why did they extend the warranty?

What number six said. When the PSone came out, you have to buy that pad THREE times! The regular one, Dual analog one, then the Dual Shock one(Remember, they also release a Resident Evil Dual Shock version of the game).

It didn't stop people from buying them back then(Maybe b/c we had a BLOG free internet, LOL), and no one seems to complain back then. I don't what's wrong with this "hipster" Generation. But, they don't complain when their iPod dies for the 4th time, or their 360 caught Aids for the 3rd time, and send it back to MS, so It could die again. But, then again, people want bring SONY down over rumble....Jeez, is getting to a point ya can't even spin the good news on how good Blu-Ray is doing.

It took you countless hours and conversations with multiple industry experts to come up with the solution of "a higher capacity battery"? Remind to stay clear of that company.

Anyway, why is everyone so worried about rumble. I have yet to play a game where I said to myself, "man, it would be great for only my hands to shake to let me know I just hit a wall at 100 mph."

If they add it great, if they dont, oh well. Just enjoy the gaming.

Matt B

I would much rather have rumble than motion. Wierd.

Motion is kinda usless when you can move around in a game fine without it. Rumble adds alot more than motion in my opinion.

But I also think racing wheels are crappy also. So whatever.

The PS3 is screwed up in every single way?

I play excellent games, watch HD movies, and stream content from my PC.

The only thing screwed up is misinformed haters that have nothing better to do then spread their FUD.

ChuckSteak0331,

You see, with rumble you would have felt your tires go off the road and been able to avoid the wall.

But instead you hit it with the retarded motion controls.

Enjoy your gaming!

"You see, with rumble you would have felt your tires go off the road and been able to avoid the wall.

But instead you hit it with the retarded motion controls."

You know, I've been playing the hell out of Forza and the only time I felt differences in the way my car controlled is when my transmission farqed up. And I've yet to have my tires go flat.

And personally, I'd trade motion and rumble away for true force feedback.

^^

Really? You couldn't tell you're going off the road by, I dunno, looking at the TV?

The sixaxis is a great controller! A dual shock sixaxis is a definite purchase for me; When the Dual Shock came out for the PS One; I didn't expect to get it for free because I had the original controller that it shipped with.

Either way you cut it; you're still getting the Playstation Network for free unlike...................LOL

No rumble = no interest in PS3 for me. I just don't think I can go back to numb controls.

13. It took you countless hours and conversations with multiple industry experts to come up with the solution of "a higher capacity battery"? Remind to stay clear of that company.

Someone's sarcasm detector is broken...

Matt B=sony fanboy extraordinaire

Wake up sir. Sony has you hypnotized...still. After all their screw-ups Sony still seems to have die-hards. But it won't be long now. The PS3 is about to join ranks with Jaguar & 3DO. Just look at the pathetic numbers each month.

Does anyone really give a damn about rumble? I turn it off on my 360 to *gasp*, save the battery.

@Jake

I also happen to be a mechanical engineer, and the point I was trying was not a technical one. Sony doesn't need more bad press, so they should not announce a feature if they are not 100% sure they are going to add it.

I think Sony could claim that players must jab a fork into their left eye while playing the PS3 and fanboys would come in here saying "I'd take a fork in the eye over rumble anyday!" Some people are just stubborn (and stupid) that way I guess.

whosmav,

On a month per month basis, PS3 is outperforming even the best console you mentioned, the 3DO. I mean, we're at less than a year and PS3 is a little over one million to outsell 3DO's entire lifespan. And this is without a price drop or what many fanboys consider "good games." PS3's library continues to look better with time and the only shoe left to fall before sales pick up is a price drop.

But wait, it's so much more topical to call it a failure and compare sales to the jaguar which topped out at 300,000 units total, right? I guess I should use a Jaguar campaign slogan against you. "Do the math."

PS3 isn't selling out by any means, but the failure is far from reality.

Stubborn (and stupid) about rumble?

Whosmav,

I'm sorry it upsets you that I don't buy your FUD and think for myself. I'm completely happy with my PS3 without being hypnotized.
I think you are the one hypnotized, sir. Hypnotized by hate. No one cares that you hate the PS3 and it's owners.
Please feel free to keep spreading your FUD, because that is all it is.

Bl13,

You dont really play racing games do you?

Its all about accuracy, a little tire rumble is nice when yor taking a very tight turn when a 10th of a second matters. Were not talking burnout here.

Sheppy- Real force feed back would be the best Im with ya there, but that would most definately be an issue for battery life.

BLAH BLAH BLAH MY SYSTEM IS BETTER BLAH BLAH BLAH

^^

No, if I was really into sim racing games I'd go buy a wheel.

I don't remember anyone complaining when we had to change the original PSone controller for the analog one and then for the DualShock, also the Xbox type S, this happened before, is no big deal.
I would buy another 360 controller if they change the D-Pad.

Rumble is more important than sense technology. Would I rather wave my hands to make a left in a racing game or would I rather feel the tires screeching against the pavement as I take that corner at 60mph? Or would I rather point on the screen where I want to aim or feel the unique handling of each weapon? Yeah I think I'll take the latter in both cases, thank you. I can understand that some people don't care for rumble, but to say that it's not important is pretty ignorant.

Real force feed back is in the 360 wheel, it's wonderful, I could never play a racing game with a controller again.

As to Sony's rumbleless controllers, let's face it that isn't going to make or break them, and it is the least of their concerns right now (like GTA4 downloads being exclusive to 360, how the fudge do you let that happen!?!?!?), but having said all that it was a huge collosal mistake to write it off as something nobody wanted. Did they actually believe that? Of course not, but their position of dominance with the PS2 allowed them to think that they dictated to the market and that THEY would decide what people wanted. Stupid, stupid, thinking and shows really large problems in the leadership at sony. They appear to be winning the HD DVD format "war" by default since their opponent is useless at marketing. They lucked out there, but Microsoft and Nintendo are not Toshiba.

They should throw $100 mil at MSG4, they lose that and their game division will start splitting the rent with Sega.

I personally dont give a shit about rumble. It was barely useful before. Now with wireless controllers, all the rumble will be effective in doing is draining the battery really quickly.

first it doenst show up, even with refresh. then it shows up three times. awesome!

OK OK OK we get it jesus!

But seriously, the 360 controllers rumble like crazy and the batteries last an extraordinarily and impressively long time, so to suggest that rumble kills battery life is to be an apoligist for a billion dollar company, which I'll never understand.

If Microsoft can make a rumbling wireless controller with good battery life Sony can to, period.

Sony may have just done the right thing by not participating in having the Playstation community pay for extra content beyond the 59.99 plus tax that everyone will be paying. All this means is that Microsoft is going to get 8.00 - 10.00 x 2 (16.00 to 20.00) maybe more out of the people that buy the game for their system. There's no way in hell that I'm paying 80.00 for a Grand Theft Auto Game or any game for that matter. Enough is enough. Funny how all the MS fanboys were screaming that Blu Ray games are going to cost 80.00 and more. It's the DVD9 games that are costing that after you add up those micro-transactions.

"like GTA4 downloads being exclusive to 360, how the fudge do you let that happen!?!?!?"

I thought this was already revealed. MS paid Rockstar $25 million per episode. In other words, with Ep 1 & 2, MS paid $50 million to get those as exclusives.

Rumble's cool, but not important. A lot of developers have come up with interesting and useful ways to implement it, but in the long run, not important. I played almost all of my Gamecube games with a Wavebird and never missed rumble.

@sheppy, link by any chance?

I am aware of how microsoft did it, I was saying how does sony let it happen. They should have paid for the content as there online service to seen as weak compared to live and needs content to show some worth. As to it being a rip off that you wouldnt pay for that's cool, but if the content is worth it I'll gladly pay for it and I am delighted to have the option to extend a games value with an extra 20 or 30 dollars.

So let me get this straight, you would rather have absolutely no knew content then the option to buy more content if you choose... again with the blind allegiance. If Sony had paid for the content you would be saying "haha Micro$oft and your dumb live, sony wins again lol!"

You see now in the store the coming soon boxes and the actual game boxes will have a "EXCLUSIVE downloadable content!!! only on Xbox 360 and Live!" which is a no brainer for most people with a job.

Right on Dustin....

I can't wait for the game and this content. I can't fault Microsoft for wanting to make money and I don't think their prices are ridiculously high. And furthermore Xbox Live is amazing and I don't regret it at all.

But hey sony still has FFXIII...for now...lol. And if and when its 100% confirmed that its a ps3 exclusive it won't bother me too much. Definitely not to the point where I'm gonna go out and buy a ps3.

Hey , I learned my lesson when I bought my Sega Saturn , that system died as I walked out of the store , but I failed to notice so I make it a point to buy all my systems 1 year after release so I don't get burned. So far PS1, PS2 were great the PSP I bought at launch was almost a loss if it wasn't for Homebrew.

I also read recently that a third party also developed a rumble feature that didn't have any moving parts and would work great with the six axis giving everyone both features in one controller , we just have to see if Sony will bite.

Here's the link: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/759/759988p1.html

Wut wut, teh ps3 dunt ne3d rumble, it pwns joo all even though it doesnt shakes, 360 is teh shittxxors ps3 has RFOM which shoots you in a church!! hahah.

...NOT

LOL: who are you calling a blind fanboy now? Go ahead and pay 20 or 30.00 more for every game. Enjoy the Exclusive episodic content that you have to PAY for! lol. The same game is going to be released for both systems. I own both systems; my choice has already been made. I don't participate in Microtransactions. I'm still enjoying Gears of War without the micro transaction rip-off downloads. And I'm going to enjoy Grand Theft Auto IV on the PS3 without worry or hassle for being charged extra for more of the same........

@48, what worry or hassle? either you buy it or you dont, its pretty straight forward, im going to enjoy gta4 on 360 with the option to expand the game moreso if i want to, at least we get that option

@48

I must have missed something... what all this talk about GTA IV and dlc? Other than that though, you're really not making much sense. I see no problems with extra dlc later on. I'd rather have that option that not having it and simply having to make do with less content.

Now, if as you seem to be saying, the PS3 starts getting game with extra content included on the disc that is a pay download on the 360... that I would have issues with. But so far that hasn't been the case... and note that I'm not talking about games that arrive months later on one system and include extra content. That's a different situation.

| 1 | 2 | Most Recent | Next 50 Comments

Sony not talking about rumble

Reader Comments (66)

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:07AM sand0789 said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:10AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:10AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:15AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:15AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:16AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:26AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:31AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:31AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:36AM sand0789 said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:38AM sand0789 said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:39AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:41AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:43AM bearattack said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:47AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:48AM bearattack said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:53AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:53AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:55AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:56AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 10:59AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 11:02AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 11:11AM daveosaur said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 11:14AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 11:15AM horngreen said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 11:22AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 11:24AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 11:28AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 11:37AM bearattack said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 11:53AM Hinchy said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 11:55AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 11:58AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 11:58AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:01PM Burritoclock said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:10PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:10PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:11PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:12PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:15PM Burritoclock said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:27PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:29PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:30PM Tez said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:32PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:39PM Burritoclock said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:43PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:56PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 12:57PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 1:03PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 1:18PM deaftly said

Posted: Jun 18th 2007 1:23PM Vidikron said

Info

Description

MSRP

Release Date

Genre

Developer

Publisher

Rating

Breaking News

WB conjures up Harry Potter for Kinect this fall

Featured Stories

Editorial: 38 Studios and the Dunkin delusions

Our own Alexander Sliwinski talks 38 Studios with Fox 25 News

The politics of making games: Disconnect between 38 Studios and Rhode Island in quotes

Engadget

TUAW

Massively

WoW