Tag Archives: immersion

Sony may have settled its patent case with Immersion of DualShock rumble, but it’s not out of the woods yet. Craig Thorner, an engineer who held a few patents related to the firm’s rumble tech, is now suing Sony, claiming the PlayStation-maker colluded with another firm to make him accept “unfavourable terms” in the Immersion case, one he appeared in as a witness.

The Immersion case dragged to a close in 2007, but Thorner claims he was hoodwinked by a group of lawyers who were acting for Sony at the time.

There’s a summary on Patent Arcade. Thanks, Kotaku.

The PC version of Tom Clancy’s EndWar will be amBX-enabled, Ubisoft said today.

For the uninitiated, amBX is an ambient system which adds external lights, speakers and rumbling to your games. Yep: rumbling.

“War gaming has taken on a new meaning with the arrival of amBX in Tom Clancy’s EndWar,” said amBX marketing boss Jo Cooke.

“What we’re offering isn’t just added in-game realism, it’s a totally new entertainment experience, in and out of the game screen, for what is widely considered to be one of the most revolutionary war games available today.”

More information on these immersion techniques through the jump.

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In what is hopefully a finale to a long legal farce, Immersion has been ordered to pay Microsoft $20.75 million as a result of Sony including rumble technology in its PS3 controllers.

Immersion owns the rumble patent, but had agreed to pay Microsoft a one-off sum of $15 million should Sony include rumble in DualShock 3 after Microsoft paid to have vibrating 360 pads. When Sony announced is was to release a second PS3 controller over Sixaxis, Immersion refused to cough up.

So Microsoft took it to court and won. The end. Thanks Kotaku. Press release after the link.

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