Immersion Antagonizing Sony, or Trying to Help out?

[LiquidEagle]

Well I definitely think the Toshiba/Sony relationship is much more tight-knit than the one Sony & Immersion ever had, but you're right -- that doesn't rule out them working in the future. Sony & Sega used to be pretty bitter rivals, same with Nintendo & Sega

We'll see how this Immersion thing works out though, but I can only see it going deeper & deeper into a whole the way both sides refuse to let up

[Omega Blue]

Sony should just come out and saying the real reason they dont want to work with Immersion....cause those little pricks are suing them for alot of money. If i sue someone for something, do you anticipate a great friendship between them and I afterwards? highly...very highly unlikely.

[PUNK em 733]

Sony should just come out and saying the real reason they dont want to work with Immersion....cause those little pricks are suing them for alot of money. If i sue someone for something, do you anticipate a great friendship between them and I afterwards? highly...very highly unlikely.

Screw friendships, we're talking about business, making money. If you have two companies that are in a legal battle, but they could come together in the future for a service/product worth hundreds of millions, if not billions then you will go for it and work together.

[LiquidEagle]

But in order to make that business relationship, Sony'd have to pony up $100 million... Especially after all this R&D cost for the PS3, I don't think that's a very nice idea to them, not to mention any sort of pride or feeling that they're on the right side, y'know?

Plus, Sony isn't losing money on this unless they lose purchases due to not having rumble, and I pity da fool who makes his console choice based on 1 feedback feature...

[Black Dragon37]

This is ALL rediculously STUPID. Immersion filed the patent before the Dual Shock. Immersion works in MANY fields other than video games (give up this stupid crack-pot thinking). Immersion actually has a WORKING product unlike patent squaters. Immersion offered the oportunity long ago for Sony to solve this before it ever went to court. After this went to court Sony lost. Sony lost again. In fact, one of the judges was so UPSET with Sony he scolded their tactics and wrote a scathing judgment. Finally, Sony lost ONE MORE TIME!

SOOOOOO......you may not like the patent system, you may not agree with the system, it may need to be fixed, but this is NOT the case of Immersion being the bad guy.

[LiquidEagle]

Is that a QFT? I can't find the original post of that

Either way, when did Immersion make any kind of an offer to Sony? The Dual Shock has been around since 1998, and Immersion didn't really come out of the woodwork until what, like 2003? Somewhere around there I believe...

It makes Immersion's motives seem a lot less like business ethics and more like business, so pardon me if I don't hold them in very high regard

[cliffbo]

immersion were only a medical equipment design company and even if they filed a patent before dual shock it was probably an obscure patent and had nothing to do with games controllers or the games industry and i think you will find spinning motors using weights to achieve rumble effects was used some years before immersion even existed.

and if nintendo has rumble and have not had immersion after them there seems something fishy about immersions practices and before someone says they used a different method to achieve it there are only so many ways of achieving it and considering immersion has 600 patents on the tech don`t you think they would have sewn up nintendos angle aswell? it`s obvious there was not enough rewards to take on nintendo as the rumble was less prevalent on the nintendo formats.

why would sony have stolen the tech for rumble they pay other companies for the use of their tech so surely they would have just paid the fees it would have been cheaper in the long run for them.

IMO they acquired the parents needed once they noticed how big the games business was becoming and then pounced on the biggest fish in the pond with the intension pf making a killing and becoming a big player in a very lucrative market.

and their recent announcements that rumble is easy to implement with tilt and is cheap and the fact that they have gone out of their way to make biased polls and announcements every time sony makes an announcement means they are getting desperate to muscle in on the ps3 business model as they obviously think it will be a success and will lose big money if they cannot pursuade sony to give in to their demands.

the next move i expect from immersion is to offer sony a deal on the amount they say sony owe them if that fails you can expect them to strike a deal with microsoft so as to lessen the blow of losing all that sony business they will lose.

[LiquidEagle]

Well they aren't losing Sony's business since they never had it to begin with, that's why they're suing

Pretty good take, but I'm still not 100% ready to just dismiss Immersion as this greedy company in a panic now because they aren't on the PS3 boat. I definitely suspect them of that much, but they may actually have better intentions when they bring themselves into the spotlight regarding Sony's announcements...maybe...

[cliffbo]

well they have obviously presumed they would get the sony business as they thought they had sony backed into a corner with nowhere to go as the ps2 sold around about 400 million controllers and if they got the royalties from them if sony gives in that is they would have thought they would make similar amounts from ps3 sales which we can see they will not be able to under the present circumstances.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

Sony is willing to bet that a lack of rumble is not going to be the make or break factor on their console.
I gotta say.... that doesn't sound that crazy.

[Viper]

But in order to make that business relationship, Sony'd have to pony up $100 million...

Not exactly.

See, Immersion sued both Sony AND MS. MS settled out of court and simply agreed to pay royalties to use the technology (as part of the deal, MS was given 20% of Immersion stock of which they've already sold for profit). Sony could have done the same thing but decided to take it to court and lost.

Immersion has offered again to drop the lawsuit if Sony would come to terms of a royalty agreement and again sony has said no and tried to appeal the lawsuit...and lost again.

They are now on their final appeal and you have no rumble in the PS3 because Sony didn't want to pay royalties.


You guys do know what happens if Sony loses this last appeal?

[masteratt]

JAIL TIME?! lol

I know you probably won't buy this "Bullshit" Viper but Kaz Hirahi said after being asked the question honestly "You guys said you couldn't have rumble because of collision of technlogy but the people who follow gaming bussiness state it's because of the thing with Immersion, what is the real deal?" He basically said it was a choice between rumble and sensing technology and Sony had to decide on one as having both would make the controllers too expensive.

[Viper]

Yeah, I've read that and laughed my ass off and such a statement.

1. It's not affecting Nintendo's controller to have both.

2. They're doing it to save gamers money? Say what? This from the guy who doesn't think $600.00 is a lot for a console. Adding rumble might add $1.00 to $2.00 to the retail cost of the controller anyway.

[BahnNZ]

heh, we know it's all BS, it's a legal thing.

I think they just don't think rumble is that important. Not to pay out millions and millions over. Which errm... they already have.

[Viper]

Apple, the big issue is the ramifications of losing the final appeal (which if they struck a deal, they wouldn't have this potential issue).

The original court order called for a cease and desist of all sales in the US of PS2, DS2 and a collection of 40+ games.

Sony plans on milking the PS2 for now to generate profit while the PS3 gains steam. If Sony doesn't have that huge help from the PS2 because of a legal sales block, they could be in much, much bigger trouble than just a $90 million settlement.

[LiquidEagle]

Not exactly.

See, Immersion sued both Sony AND MS. MS settled out of court and simply agreed to pay royalties to use the technology (as part of the deal, MS was given 20% of Immersion stock of which they've already sold for profit). Sony could have done the same thing but decided to take it to court and lost.

Immersion has offered again to drop the lawsuit if Sony would come to terms of a royalty agreement and again sony has said no and tried to appeal the lawsuit...and lost again.

I don't understand... Are you saying Immersion still has an offer on the table where they'll drop the case (which has already been decided) if Sony starts paying them royalties? I think the $100 million is unavoidable since it covers past royalties or whatever, something that's still a legal obligation.

I can see how Sony would have had an option if Immersion gave them this option back before the suit went through, but it seems like that ship has sailed by now...

I find this whole lawsuit ordeal is very short on official information, as I've read most of it from magazines or websites... is there an official source I can look at for this case? Just out of curiosity.

[vdo]

Well they aren't losing Sony's business since they never had it to begin with, that's why they're suing

According to this article they have been getting money from Sony every quarter (1.37 percent of PS2 revenues (notice it is revenues not profits, BTW - wouldn't you love to get a percentage of a companies revenue regardless of their profit?)), but Immersion wants more (5 percent).

Sony has been paying Immersion 1.37 percent of its quarterly revenue from PlayStation sales under a compulsory license ordered by the judge, but Immersion's standard rate is 5 percent, and the company hopes to use the injunction to force a settlement deal that reflects the higher rate, he said.

http://news.com.com/Sony+loses+round...3-6049177.html

I would think that Immersion should get a set percentage of the price for each controller, not a percentage of PS2 revenues. The revenue of the entire console has nothing to do with the controller tech. That would mean if Sony sells an expensive console, AKA the PS3, now Immersion gets way more money because of that, and since it is revenue based, it won't matter that Sony is not making a profit in the beginning. I didn't realize that Immersion was collecting the money in that manner and it may be those extortionist methods that may be causing Sony to do what they are doing. I was thinking Immersion was asking for a percentage of each controller and Sony didn't even want to pay that, but this is much different IMO.

With regards Sony for their comments on this, they may not be able to comment much on the ongoing case without it hurting their chances as a lot of times court participants are not allowed to say certain things while there are still pending appeals.

[LiquidEagle]

Thanks for the info. However, I expect there should be some, dare I say, more reliable source of court proceedings info than gaming publications

Certainly interesting to know, though.

[8_Bit]

Not really. I'm not entirely sure which interview it was, although I believe it could have been one of their not too recent ones, but it was said that Microsoft did not have enough stock or any at all to do this. If it wasn't so late, I would probably direct you to a source.

Wrong. This part of the agreement has nothing to do with whether Microsoft still owns Immersion stock.

Moreover, Immersion Chief Executive Victor Viegas says the settlement also includes a sub-license that allows Microsoft to cut license agreements on Immersion's technology with other companies--including Sony. Under such a deal Microsoft would share license revenue. But should Immersion settle with Sony, the latter would be obligated to pay Microsoft a minimum of $15 million. That's pocket change to a company that generates billions in cash every year, but could be viewed as a symbolic victory for Microsoft over Sony.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/2005/03/28/cx_ah_0328sony.html

It's not hard to see this is the real sticking point here. Microsoft has essentially blocked Sony and Immersion from ever reaching any kind of easy settlement by getting that language put in their settlement contract with Immersion.

Remember, when the suits were originally filed, Sony and Microsoft were expected to fight Immersion together, then Microsoft went and cut their back door deal with Immersion. Sony feels betrayed by Microsoft in this deal, and paying them at least $15 Million (and probably much more) would cause Sony to lose more face than they can possibly abide.

Microsoft played both Immersion and Sony in this deal by getting that catch in the contract. Immersion would probably have reached some sort of licensing deal with Sony by now, if Microsoft hadn't slipped that roadblock in the way.

[LiquidEagle]

that article's a little on the old side but certainly interesting nonetheless, thanks for that info 8_bit +rep