@MikeB
Quote:

To be serious, Sony merely stated "the vibration would interfere with motion-sensing", not that it would be impossible.

You dont actually believe that do you? We all know that the real reason is the patent issue regarding dual shock. There also been controllers with both motion sensing and rumble in the past.
Also most people seem to rather want rumble than the crappy motion sensing that hardly works. I tried it with motorstorm, and it was hardly usable at all.

@BrianK

A force feedback controller patent was licensed by Sony from Logitech during 1998. I am not a defender of the US patent system, I think patents are filled for often rediculous or even decade old approaches and technologies. I don't think much R&D was needed for developing vibration.

Sony already paid Immersion 30.6 million USD before both companies recently reached a settlement worth 97.2 million USD to Immersion, so I have my doubts with regard to your bankruptcy claims.

@Tomas

Of course it's not hard to imagine a vibrating controller could have a negative impact on motion sensing accuracy. I can imagine a combined rumble/motion sensing controller, requires more R&D than just a rumble controller and a motion sensing controller used seperately.

@MikeB

Quote:

A force feedback controller patent was licensed by Sony from Logitech during 1998. I am not a defender of the US patent system, I think patents are filled for often rediculous or even decade old approaches and technologies. I don't think much R&D was needed for developing vibration. Sony already paid Immersion 30.6 million USD before both companies recently reached a settlement worth 97.2 million USD to Immersion, so I have my doubts with regard to your bankruptcy claims.

Ridiculous or not the US courts ruled that Sony's use violates Immersion's patents. The US courts are the final stop for companies that feel wronged, as they should be to do business within the US. I'm not sure what Sony paid out before nor if that was a full or partial payment. But apparently it wasn't a full payment. Again, you can fairly blame Microsoft for the clause but they didn't implement the clause that is an action that only Immersion can take. Immersion felt it was fair and agreed to refund Microsoft some monies if they were able to get a large settlement. So, at this point if this contract was unfair it'll be up to to those harmed, in this case Sony or perhaps Nintendo, to sue Immersion and Microsoft for unfair market collusion. But, as the agreement didn't impact Sony's court loss nor penality I'm highly doubtful Sony could actually show harm.

It appears that Immersion might not read their own contracts to well. Perhaps they should have agreed to $1 under $100M and paid Microsoft $0. This would have benefited Sony as the technology would have been cheaper. It appears Immersion put themselves in a position where the terms of the clause came into effect. Immersion had the patent power over Microsoft and could have asked for the clause to be removed in the agreement, they either liked the clause or did a poor job reading their contract, either way this is Immersion's fault not Microsoft's. Immersion had the ability to act upon Sony in such a way that the clause wouldn't have come into effect, they appeared to either liked the larger $$ amount and didn't care about the clause or failed to understand what related business agreements would come into effect, again this is Immersion's fault in running their business not Microsoft's. Immersion appears to think that calling it an agreement and not a settlement they can get away with some legal wording 3 card monty. We'll see if they can.

Last edited by BrianK on 03-Aug-2007 at 11:55 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

Of course it's not hard to imagine a vibrating controller could have a negative impact on motion sensing accuracy. I can imagine a combined rumble/motion sensing controller, requires more R&D than just a rumble controller and a motion sensing controller used seperately.

Being Microsoft did this to a PC gaming controller nearly 8-10 years ago, date may be off, Sony could likely license their technology to get the 2 to work together. Also Immersion stated they've gotten this to work and offered to work with Sony. So, if Sony wanted this quicker then an R&D cycle they likely could partner with someone that has done it.

Last edited by BrianK on 03-Aug-2007 at 11:19 PM.

@BrianK

Quote:

or perhaps Nintendo

Nintendo uses a significantly different method for generating vibration in their controllers, so they were never sued unlike Sony and Microsoft.

Last edited by MikeB on 03-Aug-2007 at 11:55 PM.

@MikeB

Quote:

Nintendo uses a significantly different method for generating vibration in their controllers, so they were never sued unlike Sony and Microsoft.

On a personal note it'd be interested in comparing all 3. I believe the Sony and Microsoft methods are pretty straight forward -- take a small motor and place an offset weight on the end. The control should be as simple as an on-off timing switch or relay. I wonder what/how Nintendo does it different. I'll have to see if anyone's broken a Wii controller I can rip apart.

Know the company you admire....

"Microsoft has now officially responded to an Illinois family's lawsuit in which a fire was allegedly caused by a faulty Xbox console in December of 2004. The fire resulted in the death of an infant, Wade Kline. According to the lawsuit, the fire was caused by an overheating power supply, which became so hot as to start the deadly fire. Microsoft, in response, has stated that the fire was wholly the responsibility of the family, and that it was the result of "misuse or abuse" of the console in question. Furthermore, Microsoft claims that the fire was the result of an "obvious" condition of which the family was aware. Considering Microsoft did not recall power cords until February of 2005 (on account of fire concerns) we're not sure to what obvious condition Microsoft is referring. Microsoft is asking that the case be dismissed and that the Kline family pay the company's legal fees."

http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2007/08/03/ms-blames-xbox-abuse-for-deadly-fire/

I finally got to play with a 360 the other day. Didn't do much with it though.

My impressions:

It's noisy.

Gears looks fantastic, don't think there's anything on PS3 to match it ...but that might be about to change.

Who said those controllers were comfortable?

Didn't do much with it though, mainly watching Serenity (good film BTW).

_________________
Whyzzat?

@MikeB

The fire and death of a child was sad. They were asking for $50K. Microsoft should have just settled with the typical 'this is no admission of fault but your full reward for any current and future damages' clause that rides these sort of settlements.

One issue however is the claim from the family...
'Microsoft recently learned about this tragic incident that occurred in December 2004. Our sympathy is with the family. However, we are not aware of any evidence that an XBox caused the fire. Also, the complaint specifically states that an XBox 360 was involved, but this version of the product was unavailable for purchase at that time.'

Now I wonder did the police take the complaint or did the parent fill out the document themselves? If the later then this does look very strange as 360s were not available in 2004.

Microsoft is improving...
" Xbox.com has an online option for customers in the US, now available at http://service.xbox.com.

This new service lets you register your Xbox or Xbox 360 console, setup a repair, and track the status of the repair, all online. This new site lets you create In-Warranty or Out-of-warranty repairs, and even gives you a $5 discount for Out-of-Warranty repairs.
"

Very cool for those unlucky enough to get a console breakage. Yes no European site yet. Historically Microsoft has done the US first then roles to countries outside the US.

Sony should be banned [from AW.net] for such anti-competetive tactics!

Quote:

"We think it is also likely that Take-Two had a contractual commitment to Sony that it would not favor competitor Microsoft by launching the Xbox 360 version of GTA IV prior to launching the PS3 version, and believe that any delay of the PS3 version necessitated a delay of the Xbox 360 version."

@jtsiren

Micheal Pachter has been more often wrong than right with regard to his speculations, but anyhow I don't see anything truly malicious with regard to the rumour.

Rockstar already complained with regard to the lack of storage on DVDs (first party title PGR4 had to be scaled down recently with regard to its graphics due to this limitation) and with regard to the lack of a default harddrive for the XBox 360 core. There's a rumour Microsoft may allow developers to have a harddrive as a minimum requirement in the future, so maybe they are beefing up the version they had as the game should be identical on both PS3 and XBox 360.

Back on topic, Japanese termal expert takes a look at the XBox 360 thermal issues:

"Face it: the Xbox 360 isn't quite up to snuff. The design is flawed, leading to an abnormal number of machines konking out. Since Microsoft won't reveal the details of what exactly is causing the problems, Japanese news source Nikkei had a thermal design expert analyze the 360's heat radiation system. Two Xbox 360's were used for the investigation: one purchased in 2005, and the other that was repaired in May 2007. Their findings?


• The temperature gap with room temp was 22 degrees C. "When designing consumer products, it is common to seek a temperature gap of around 10 degrees C between exhaust and room temperatures," the thermal design expert said. "The 22 degrees C is quite a large gap..."
• The cooling fan was half of desktop PCs — apparently to reduce noise.
• The expert pointed out, "The heat sink on the graphics LSI is so small, I wonder if it can really cool down the board." The reason for this? Apparently, Microsoft had to downsized graphics LSI heat sink so that the DVD drive could be placed above it.
• In five minutes after booting up a game, the graphic LSI heat sink temp rose to 70 degrees C. In 15 minutes, the temperature for the microprocessor heat sink stabilized at 58 degrees, but the graphics LSI heat sink reached 80 degrees C. If the room temperature was high (like 35 degrees C), the heat sink could possibly hit 100 degrees C. What's more, if the vents were clogged with dust, the temperature could also increase.
• The console repaired in May 2007 did not have a new heat sink placed in it.
This is bad design. Really, really bad."

http://kotaku.com/gaming/japan-explains/why-xbox-360s-heat-up-and-crap-out-286202.php

@MikeB

Quote:

The console repaired in May 2007 did not have a new heat sink placed in it.

It would have made more sense to compare the new design to the old design IMO. It doesn't really tell us anything to say that the old design and a newer manufacture date on the old design perform the same. DUH!

As for temp gap they may or may not have a point. They seemed to miss the information on what the thermal characteristics of the GPU is. If say, for example, the GPU was built to sustain higher expected temps what they measured could well be within the expected norms for this unit.

Quote:

The expert pointed out, "The heat sink on the graphics LSI is so small, I wonder if it can really cool down the board

And look hey Microsoft enlarged it on newer versions of the console. Again I wish they would have compared the newer versions with the fix in place, that would have told us how well/bad those fixes are likely to impact the issue.

Quote:

What's more, if the vents were clogged with dust, the temperature could also increase.

Um don't all electronics work this way? I can't think of any electronics which gets cooler when one reduces or eliminates the airflow. Mostly worthless statement, IMO.

@MikeB

Quote:

first party title PGR4 had to be scaled down recently with regard to its graphics due to this limitation

Bizarre Creations developer seems to disagree with your ascertion. -- You won't see different times of day per city because this involves recreating all the textures again (one for day and one for night). Whilst this wasn't a problem for our dev team, it was a problem fitting all this data onto a single DVD. So we've worked around the problem by providing different lighting models per city. --

Seems they approached the problem from a different angle and were able to 'worked around the problem'.

@BrianK

Quote:

And look hey Microsoft enlarged it on newer versions of the console. Again I wish they would have compared the newer versions with the fix in place, that would have told us how well/bad those fixes are likely to impact the issue.

The new version was afaik not out yet. I believe the new units have just now started showing up in stores here and there, while many still only have the old version.

@BrianK

Quote:

Um don't all electronics work this way? I can't think of any electronics which gets cooler when one reduces or eliminates the airflow. Mostly worthless statement, IMO.

A good design takes into account long term usage. They just state, brandnew the design is insufficient already, in due time the problem only becomes worse.

@Tomas

Quote:

The new version was afaik not out yet. I believe the new units have just now started showing up in stores here and there, while many still only have the old version.

Many potential XBox 360 consumers more eductated on the issue are now wary of buying a XBox 360 because they don't know what they will buy. There are still hundreds of thousands of unsold units which were shipped around 8 months ago. It's hard to tell if they have an additional heatsink or not, others state they will wait for 65nm redesign, but again people are wondering if they will be able to find out if the unit they are buying will be a 90nm model or a 65nm model.

Meanwhile the PS3 has been number 1 or 2 (only beaten by the Wii) on Amazon.com for many weeks now.

@MikeB

Quote:

A good design takes into account long term usage.

To a point you're right. I'm somehow doubtful that any console, PC, or electronics manufacture took into account the impact of all the hair from my wife's 9 indoor pets would be if I never cleaned the electronics for 5 years.

Quote:

They just state, brandnew the design is insufficient already, in due time the problem only becomes worse.

Without actually testing the new design such a conclusion is as hand wavy as anybody else's. People with exchanged units are seeing the new design and the new Elites, not original Elites, are showing with the updated GPU cooling. As they're in Japan and the Elite isn't out there. So perhaps they should wait to test a fixed Elite or find someone with an actual console with the new fixes. You have to admit testing the actually fixed console is going to be way more valid then testing and old console and concluding the new design won't work either.

Last edited by BrianK on 06-Aug-2007 at 03:14 PM.