Immersion survey results: you want your rumble!

How sorely missed is vibration from the new PS3 controller? Rumble, after all, put the Shock in the first DualShock for the first PS. And no other console since that one (and the Rumble Pack add-on for the N64) came out without vibration – except for the PS3. But the results of a survey, commented on in ArsTechnica, suggests that vibration-less games will leave gamers wanting – wanting their DualShocks back, that is.

The survey’s results report that 72% of respondents believe rumble/vibration enhances their game experience. Without rumble, they say, games like Madden just feel like… games. With rumble, however, the game experience gets kicked up a notch every time the player gets hit by 200-plus pounds of linebacker. In fact, motion-sensing placed a rather cold second to vibration, with half of the survey respondents prefering motion-sensing with rumble, and very, very few wanting motion-sensing alone.

There was one, er, quirk about the survey, though. The survey was commissioned by Immersion. You know, the company that sued Sony because its DualShock vibration feature violated copyright laws? Immersion won that lawsuit. Okay, fine, survey companies maintain that they are always neutral and take no sides in their surveys. Still, the ArsTechnica author wonders: is Immersion trying to deliver a message to Sony?

You know, at the end of the day, we’re just glad that the games on the PS3 play well, given their TGS performance this year. Vibration/rumble can be debated to hell and back – some players want it, some players don’t. We just want to play, vibration or not. The original PSOne controller didn’t even have analog sticks, remember? Things can change.

How sorely missed is vibration from the new PS3 controller? Rumble, after all, put the Shock in the first DualShock for the first PS. And no other console since that one (and the Rumble Pack add-on for the N64) came out without vibration – except for the PS3. But the results of a survey, commented on in ArsTechnica, suggests that vibration-less games will leave gamers wanting – wanting their DualShocks back, that is.

The survey’s results report that 72% of respondents believe rumble/vibration enhances their game experience. Without rumble, they say, games like Madden just feel like… games. With rumble, however, the game experience gets kicked up a notch every time the player gets hit by 200-plus pounds of linebacker. In fact, motion-sensing placed a rather cold second to vibration, with half of the survey respondents prefering motion-sensing with rumble, and very, very few wanting motion-sensing alone.

There was one, er, quirk about the survey, though. The survey was commissioned by Immersion. You know, the company that sued Sony because its DualShock vibration feature violated copyright laws? Immersion won that lawsuit. Okay, fine, survey companies maintain that they are always neutral and take no sides in their surveys. Still, the ArsTechnica author wonders: is Immersion trying to deliver a message to Sony?

You know, at the end of the day, we’re just glad that the games on the PS3 play well, given their TGS performance this year. Vibration/rumble can be debated to hell and back – some players want it, some players don’t. We just want to play, vibration or not. The original PSOne controller didn’t even have analog sticks, remember? Things can change.