Playing Nintendo v26 – Rumble Addiction

I don’t know about you guys, but rumble feedback is something that I find extremely important. I’m so crazy about feeling the action in my hands that I never, ever use my Wavebird — it’s rumble or bust for me. The deep vibration offered by the GC, PS2 and Xbox controllers really makes me feel as if I’m in the game, and suddenly playing without that feeling massively distances me from the action. This generation, unfortunately, it looks like Microsoft is the only company that’s offering a rumble on par with that of the last era.

As you may have heard, Sony’s Kaz Hirai has been busy trying to justify Sony’s decision to leave rumble support out of its PS3 controller, the awkwardly named ‘Sixaxis’. First, it was attributed to incompatibility with the tilt sensor, but that was nothing more than a cop-out. Hirai has moved on to calling it a strategic move, even saying that it was done to keep the price down for consumers, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the real reason for rumble’s exclusion is the legal battle that force feedback firm Immersion has been waging, and winning, against Sony for some time now. Immersion’s president, Vic Viegas, responded to Hirai’s comments, stating that rumble could very well be implemented into PS3′s controller with no significant increase in cost. He went on to predict that consumers are going to be unhappy with Sony’s decision, and that sales will suffer as a result.

I don’t know about the majority of gamers, but I can speak for myself in saying that without force feedback, PS3 is a much less attractive proposition. I’m not too excited about any PS3 games to begin with, but those that I am excited about seem far less alluring without rumble. Take Factor 5′s Lair, for instance. The game looks incredible, and the idea of the controller acting as virtual reins to control your dragon sounds like an incredible concept, but I can’t imagine it being all that involving without any physical feedback. I’d say a lot of gamers are going to feel the same way, and a number of recent impressions of PS3 games have mentioned a feeling of disconnection due to the lack of rumble. This issue has made Xbox 360, with its excellent controller vibration, a much more tempting purchase for me, and I doubt I’m alone on that. I think Immersion’s president is right — Sony’s bosses are likely going to look back on this generation and wish they’d just swallowed their pride and paid Immersion (= paid Microsoft) to license the technology.

Now for the console I really care about — Wii. While I’m certainly happy that Wii does indeed feature built-in rumble, I can’t deny the fact that I’m disappointed it’s only in the Wiimote, absent from the Nunchuck and the VC Controller. The latter means no rumble for N64 games, and combined with the fact that GC controller compatibility looks like a no-go for our 64-bit faves, I’m pretty bummed out. Added to that, the Wiimote’s rumble is rather bare bones, featuring no varying degrees of intensity — it’s a weak on/off affair, not the deep vibration offered by GC’s controller. Some sources have actually said it’s more like a buzz than a rumble, and that kinda sucks. I can only hope that as time goes by and technology advances, Nintendo will release Wii controllers with better rumble functionality. Imagine having a nice, deep rumble, not only in the Wiimote, but in the Nunchuck as well. In Zelda, for instance, you’d feel sword clashes in the Wiimote and shield impacts in the Nunchuck. Sounds like a much more immersive experience to me.

While I’m not really trying to come down on Nintendo here, it does seem a bit more could have been done when you consider the Wiimote/Nunchuck’s combined price tag of sixty dollars. Look at Xbox 360 as an example. Forty to fifty bucks for the excellent 360 wireless controller, which features dual rumble motors with adjustable intensity to conserve battery life. I’d wager that another simple on/off rumble motor, like the one in the Wiimote, could have been featured in the Nunchuck at little extra cost. With user-adjustable intensity, battery life probably wouldn’t be a big issue. Add in the fact that Nintendo faces virtually no threat whatsoever from Immersion, and it all adds up to a missed opportunity, if you ask me.

Still, with Nintendo being such a huge proponent of force feedback — the company claims it invented the technology, after all — there’s reason to hope that Wii will feature better rumble functionality down the line. The console seems to be following quite closely in the footsteps of DS, and considering the awesome changes that the ‘lite’ revision brought just over a year after that system’s release, who knows what’s in store. Until then, we’ll have to make due with feeling the action in just one hand, not two. Rumble freaks like me might be left wanting more, but hey, as Sony’s shown us, things could be a lot worse

Note: If you’re interested in hearing how Nintendo hasn’t been implicated in Immersion’s legal battles regarding vibration technology, click here and here.