Sony ditches rumble pack in favor of motion sensor in PS3 controller

Sony gave conference goers at E3 this week a first look at its new PlayStation 3, including the consoles new controller. While the PS3 controller has been accused of being a Nintendo Revolution/Wii knockoff because of its similar motion sensor capabilities, we felt in a first hands-on demo that the controller does provide fairly impressive game play capabilities.

The same size and shape as the PS2 controller, the new controller allows players to forgo the analog buttons and simply move the controller up and down and side to side.

Surprisingly, the translation of the controller’s movement onto the game was fairly precise and extremely enjoyable, if not entirely disorienting at first. TwitchGuru got a look at the PS3 and its controller in action today during a demo of the forthcoming aerial combat game Warhawk from Sony. A simple tilt of the controller made the aircraft bank, while moving the controller up and down led to intense dips and climbs on screen. The game itself offered impressive visuals. Coupled with the PS3 controller, Warhawk presented a high quality and engrossing experience.

But what happened to the rumble pack ? It seems that Sony has traded the shake, rattle and roll of previous controllers for the motion sensor capability. According to a Sony official at the Warhawk demo, the company decided that the rumbling would conflict with the motion sensor technology, though Sony isn’t ruling out bringing back the rumble pack at some point in the future.

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