Immersion says their rumble tech IS compatible with the PS3 tilt and motion controller

Sony PlayStation 3Sony has said that it won’t use rumble technology in the PS3 controller because it would interfere with the tilt-sensors, but we all kind of figured that was a white lie, because the real reason was the lawsuit Immersion filed against Sony alleging that the company used its tech to make PlayStation controllers rumble. Under the terms of the litigation, Sony pays Immersion royalties every quarter on its consoles, games and controllers sold in the US.

Basically this is costing Sony a ton of money, so they dumped rumble after the PS2, but this wasn’t 100% positive, until now…

Immersion CEO Vic Viegas, today said in his company’s announcement about their next-gen force-feedback tech called TouchSense, that the new technology will offer positional vibration as well as a range of new effects.

Immersion says you’ll be able to feel the “springy sensation of hitting a tennis ball,” or the “surge of powering up a lightsaber, followed by the transition to a subtle hum, then the jolt of clashing with their opponent’s light saber.” Positional-Vibration also means you’ll be able to feel where you’re getting shot from in an FPS.

Immersion made sure to note that TouchSense is fully compatible with motion and tilt-sensing controllers, despite Sony’s claims it would interfere with the PS3’s tilt-sensors.

“We continue to want to try to resolve this, and we’ve had discussions with them in the past about how we could resolve this,” Viegas said. “Up until now, those discussions haven’t generated any progress, but we’re still hopeful that we can bring this new technology into the market, and that we can resolve our differences with Sony.”

I’ll say this, I “feel” backwards compatibility with PS1 & PS2 games is going to be pretty crappy without rumble in the PS3 controller.