We're baaaack! With another installment of everyone's favorite segment: Sony Says!

In this issue, we're going to cover what Kaz Hirai says about why they're not including rumble technology with their "innovative and original" motion sensitive controller (that they copied from Nintendo). First, though, a little backstory!

Once upon a time, there was a company named Immersion. They have a patent on a particular type of rumble technology. Microsoft and Sony used this technology without licensing and Immersion sued them in this wonderful country where people can get away with suing for anything. Microsoft settled in court and agreed to pay for the technology they were using and they are currently using it in the Xbox 360 today. Sony, on the other hand, did NOT settle (and is apparently still an active court case) and decided not to license the technology and they stripped it from the new PlayStation 3.

At E3 2006, they covered this a tiny bit. Just in passing, after introducing their new "motion sensitive" controller that is "innovative and original and will change the face of gaming as we know it", they dropped a little tidbit that it will not have rumble technology because it interferes with the motion detection. Which, I might add, we all instantly saw as a complete lie because Nintendo's Wii controller is motion sensitive with rumble technology. A technology they invented themselves, since Immersion has not sued them.

See, people are claiming that Immersion is a jerk for suing over something so trivial as a shaking controller. However, the fact that they have NOT sued Nintendo over their rumble technology tells me that they're not suing over ALL rumble packs... they're just chasing down the companies who're using the ones they made. Maybe the Wii licensed the technology from Immersion right off the bat, but, if they had, I think we would have heard about that by now.

So the way I see it, Sony is being an arrogant slimeball and saying "well, if we can't get it for free, then we're just not gonna use it! So there!" Typical, if you ask me. Then they invent all these dumb stories about why they left it out... and it's never been about Immersion... that is... until now.

GameDaily.biz reports that Kaz Hirai has finally come out and told us the "real" reason why they're not including rumble in their new controllers. You can read it yourself, but I'll just review what he said. He now says that "sure, we can fix the interference with the motion sensors, but we don't want to in order to keep the price of the console down". He claims that motion sensitivity is far more important than rumble (wait, didn't they laugh at Nintendo's motion sensing controller? didn't they call it a gimmick?). But apparently, we should all be cheering for Sony because they're trying to keep their console cheap. Right. This from the company charging $599 US dollars.

Ah, but there's more. Also from GameDaily.biz, Immersion sent off a response to Hirai's crazy claims. In a long response, he basically says that "Sony says they're not including rumble because they claim that fixing the interference issues will cost more money? Not only does our rumble not affect motion sensing enough to be an issue in the first place, but we've already devised some fixes that DO NOT INCREASE THE COST OF IMPLEMENTING RUMBLE."

It's worth noting that the comments on Slashdot are really tearing Immersion up over this "stupid patent" they have and how they're "manipulating the media to promote their selfish case". Uhm... okay, then. Let's just totally ignore that Sony released their press release first, and then Immersion RESPONDED almost 6 hours later. An Immersion media ploy? Give me a break... Sony is grasping at straws to avoid the real reason (that everyone knows anyway) they're not including the rumble technology is because they're too stubborn to say "okay, we're sorry for infringing on your patents... we'll license your technology or stop".

(Side note... you might say that I just contradicted myself. That Sony's not including rumble in the PS3, so why are they still in court? Well... you forget the PlayStation 2 controller. The "Dual Shock"? It's still being made with Immersion's rumble technology, and Sony's not doing a single thing about that. They're ignoring Immersion and still making money off what is technically stolen technology. But Sony never steals technology, do they? Oh, no... not Sony! So until Sony either licenses the technology (at least for the PS2) or stops production and/or disables all current Dual Shock rumble packs, Sony is going to be haunted by Immersion and the courts.)

The comments went on to show their amazing grasp on reality by stating that the Nintendo Wii's sensor bar (that goes above or below your TV) is for aligning the controller to adjust for rumble interference... WRONG!! See, people are still of the belief that the PlayStation 3 controller (officially dubbed "Sixaxis", as if it has twice the dimensions of our physical universe) is the very same thing as the Nintendo Wii controller. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

The Sixaxis is basically a tilt sensor. It'll sense you tilting the controller all over the place, like that guy who demonstrated Warhawk at E3 2006. Looked like he was going to dislocate his shoulders? Yeah, that one. The Wii controller has that, too. It can sense all that movement, PLUS, with the sensor bar, it can determine its location in 3D space. The Sixaxis can't do that. It can only register tilts... the Wii remote can figure out how high it is in relation to the sensor bar.

Totally different functions! It has nothing to do with the tilt sensor! Nintendo says some games might not use the sensor bar, which means that tilt function is not based on that! Nintendo has rumble technology working side-by-side with tilt functions not relying on a point of origin. Get your facts straight, and give Sony the crap they deserve!
So! To recap:

The reason Sony isn't including rumble technology in the PlayStation 3 controller is because, Kaz Hirai wants us to believe, that the process of fixing the (non-existant) issue of rumble interfering with motion sensitivity will cost money to implement and Sony is interested in keeping the price low for us.

Immersion responds, saying that even if there was a problem with rumble messing with the motion sensors, they had their engineers devise a couple of methods to fix this "problem" and that it will have no additional cost, and they go on to say that Sony has still not honored their patents by doing something about the production of the Dual Shock controllers.

What do you think? Do we believe that Sony has the best in mind for us? Do we believe that Immersion is a money-mongering company who's suing people left and right for building shaking bits of plastic? Some do...