PS3: Goodbye DualShock, Hello Gyroscopic Sensors

May 17th, 2006, 15:51 Posted By: wraggster

It became clear at E3 last week, whilst talking to numerous senior development personnel at the show, that Sony had finished adding on the motion sensing capabilities of the PS3 controller right at the last minute.

With only one game at the show making use of the motion sensor aspect of the controller - the internally developed Warhawk (click here for SPOnG's hands on) - there were soon whisperings across the show floor that Sony had nicked Nintendo's big motion-sensing control idea.

And perhaps they have, in part? Though we have to be clear on the fact that the two controllers are still completely different. Simply put, the Wii's two-part controller makes use of full 3D motion sensing, whereas the PS3 gyroscope and accelerometer powered controller is based around the controller's tilt and motion. There is no external sensor to measure exactly where the controller is in 3D space, so there is no way in which Sony is planning to 'rip-off' Wii games, as some misinformed Nintendo fanboys were claiming last week. At best, the PS3 controller could try to plot relative movements and use them to guess at an absolute position. That's the equivalent of navigating a boat by going 100 miles north then 50 miles west instead of using GPS - it'll get you somewhere close, but errors will add up. Not so much of a problem in a boat where you can see land, but a bit imprecise in a games console.

Sony did attempt to spin the fact that not needing an external sensor bar was in some way an advantage, but for most it is hard to see what they were getting at, other than having a cheap dig at Nintendo.

There is also the fact that, as backed up by a 1999 patent, Sony have been working on motion sensing technology for a while now. However, there was no evidence what so ever that the technology was slated for PS3 until this year's E3. Well after Nintendo showed the Wii (then still Revolution) controller at the Tokyo Games Show.

One announcement that Sony managed to slip out last week that didn't seem to garner the attention it perhaps should have done, is that the company have also decided to drop "DualShock" vibration control - which is surprising, as this seems to be a popular feature with PS2 gamers.

The reasoning given by Sony was that the DualShock's rumble feature interfered with the gyroscopic motion sensor in the PS3 controller. Sony also went on to refer to the PS2's rumble features as 'last generation' in order to further the idea that the PS3's motion-sensing controller is decidedly the next gen way forward.

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