Sony, Immersion settle PlayStation suit over vibration technology

March 2nd, 2007

Sony was sued a couple years back for breaking a couple of patent laws with their Rumble feature on their controllers. Immersion had the rights to the technology and Sony utilized it in their Playstation controllers. Today they settled a suit that was heard to be in the $300 Million range for the issue.

Immerions and Sony are now going to work together so that Sony will be allowed to use the vibration feature on their controllers. The Playstation 2 production was threatened to be halted over the issue since they came standard with the Rumble controllers. The Playstation 3 was not featured to have this technology on their new wireless bluetooth controllers and was released with out it. I have not heard whether they will now be incorporating this technology into controllers for the PS3, but one can only assume that they have considered it.

Glad I haven’t bought one yet. I love the Rumble feature to be honest with you. They way it simulates a heartbeat in horror and FPS games was a great way to immerse us in their games. It was also great for driving sims and other sports games where in games like Nascar you got a bit of a Rumble when bumped or got against the wall.