Immersion Corporation has finally responded to Microsoft's new lawsuit concerning the rumble maker's settlement with Sony. If you missed our last report, the whole fiasco involves Microsoft' claiming that Immersion owe them part of the settlement fee the latter got from Sony.

Now Immersion is saying that Microsft has already received its share. It was reported that Sony paid Immersion around US$ 150 million. However, things get tricky if you've read Immersion's official filing with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A part of that said filing reads,

Our net income was US$ 122.4 million for the three months ended March 31, 2007... The increase in net income was primarily due to the litigation conclusion and patent license from Sony Computer Entertainment of US$ 119.9 million and the extinguishment of the liability to Microsoft of US$ 15.0 million.

As you've read, the money that was given to Immersion is being classified under "litigation conclusion and patent license." One can easily assume that these words translate to settlement but you all know how litigations go - everything depends on the interpretation of documents.

We are not entirely sure if Microsoft sued immersion because its lawyers interpreted this differently, meaning there's more money behind these. However, the father of rumble technology is keeping firm with its earlier stand saying,

Immersion believes that it is not obligated under the sublicense agreement with Microsoft to make any payment to Microsoft relating to the conclusion of its litigation with Sony Computer Entertainment. Immersion intends to defend this lawsuit vigorously.

Quite interestingly, the settlement between Sony and Immersion Corporation regarding controllers' rumble feature somehow concerns Microsoft. Last Monday, big MS just sued Immersion for contract breach.

We imagine you now asking, "What kind of breach?" and more importantly, "What contract are we talking about?" If you still remember, Immersion Corporation originally filed a lawsuit against the two companies back in 2002.

The case with Sony was eventually settled and with a hefty price tag if we may add. The two even reached a new agreement still concerning the much-talked about rumble for the SIXAXIS.

Now, Microsoft had this clause that requires Immersion to pay them based on "certain business and IP licensing arrangements" in the event that the rumble maker and Sony will settle. This is now where the problem lies because Microsft claims that Immersion hasn't lived up to the said terms. Microsoft Associate General Counsel Steve Aeschbacher said,

Microsoft licenses technology both in and out and relies on these agreements to be honored and enforced. Our request to the court is that all companies and industry partners should play by the same rules and that the binding agreement we signed with Immersion be honored.

It's really intriguing how this will affect the on-going console war between Sony and Microsoft. How about you, what do you think?

Rumors have been circulating the web regarding the development of a new rumble controller for the PlayStation 3. As of this article's writing, Sony has decided not to confirm this issue, though they haven't seen fit to deny it either.

Innerbits.com announced that they received word from two independent sources at Sony which confirmed that the company was working on rumble controller prototypes. In addition, they also said that development of the controller has been going on for a few months.

This implies that they have been planning this for some time now - despite the fact that Phil Harrison once addressed the gaming populace regarding the lack of a rumble feature. He said that the SIXAXIS controller's features far outweighed the lack of rumble. Unfortunately, quite a few players took umbrage at this.

GamesIndustry.biz was able to contact both SCEE (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe) and SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment America) regarding these rumors, and both organizations have declined to say anything about it.

That said, it looks to be very possible that a controller may be heading our way considering that Sony has signed an agreement with Immersion Corporation. If you'll remember, the said company sued Sony some time back for copyright infringement regarding the rumble features of the PS2.

Kaz Hirai from SCE spoke about this new partnership saying that "We [Sony] are very excited about our new partnership with Immersion and the potential for new and innovative products incorporating their technologies."

The future looks bright and rumbly for PS3 owners worldwide, keep checking back here for more updates on this as it develops.

A fellow on the GameFAQs message boards who wishes to go by the name of "Gamesblowremake" alerts the Internet that the rumor section in the new PSM says that the a SIXAXIS with Immersion's rumble feature is going to be announced at E3 and is set to be released on November 13.

The rumor also says that Metal Gear's Hideo Kojima is asking for more time from Sony so that he can be able to implement both tilt sense and rumble into Metal Gear Solid 4.

While we only have Gamesblowremake's claim to go with, the rumor does seem plausible given the time it's taking for Metal Gear Solid 4 to finish, Sony and Immersion's settlement and their supposed new "rumble" project, and Sony's apparent focus on the fourth quarter of 2007 (recall PlayStation Home, the LittleBigPlanet demo, and other plans Sony has for that timeframe).

For the full thread on that GameFAQs message board (just in case you want to jump in and scream "Fake!"), feel free to head to it via our "read" link below.

We're hearing more and more about Tom Clancy's EndWar with each passing day. A couple of days ago, we learned that the title will have full support for voice-activation which is good news since consoles don't mix well with RTS games in general.

During Ubidays 07, a new trailer video was shown with complete commentary from the devs themselves. Today, Ubisoft Creative Director Michael de Plater said that the video game will be publicly beta-tested later this year (around November). Plater said,

We really believe that as soon as anyone can get their hands on the controls and experience it, it'll be something new and it's a level of immersion and realism and accessibility that's never really been in a strategy game. We're really focusing on getting our beta-test out for November.

Aside from this, the creative director also hinted that the World War III scenario for EndWar is a fertile ground for sequels. Currently, EndWar is scheduled to appear both on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 but no concrete release dates have been finalized yet.

About expanding the EndWar franchise, Plater had this to say, "As you can see from looking at World War II [games], World War III is something that can be big enough to be explored from loads of different directions, loads of different theatres, genres - we really see this as the beginning of that."

Immersion recently announced to the press that its operating income for the first quarter of this year was US$ 131 million. Immersion notes that this was driven largely by "profit" from litigation conclusions in their recent patent litigations with Sony Computer Entertainment in the amount of US$ 134.6 million.

Immersion's regular business revenues amounted to a comparatively small, US$ 6.0 million.

Immersion announced that so far, it has received from Sony Computer Entertainment US$ 119.9 million as a result of the conclusion of the patent infringement suit, and is expecting to gain an addition US$ 29.9 million as revenue and US$ 2.3 million as interest income. (All that, related to the litigation.)

Ultimately Immersion sees that they will receive at least US$ 152.2 million from Sony.

While Sony currently does not offer the "rumble" feature in the SIXAXIS controller that comes with the PS3, it has been reported that they may be working with Immersion to bring back the "rumble" in upcoming controllers for their PlayStation 3 console.

Fansite "Killzone Unit" just had a bit of Q&A with SCEA. After asking their readers for possible questions to ask, it was none other that David Karraker himself who spoke for the company and answered some rather burning questions. There were a lot of issues raised, and some clarification on certain rumors we've been hearing for the past couple of days/weeks/months now. Some of the more interesting parts of the interview:

KZU: Now that Sony and Immersion have settled, is rumble going to eventually make it's way to the PlayStation 3 SIXAXIS controller?
Dave: We are currently in discussions with Immersion on how we can incorporate their technologies into our products. No word on when that will happen.

Take note, he said "when" and not "if". Is the rumble feature as good as confirmed then?

KZU: Regarding the XMB, are there plans to allow users to customize their backgrounds similar to the PSP?
Dave: Yes, we are currently exploring numerous options that allow people to make their PS3 experience more personalized.

Will this open up homebrew custom firmware and XMB custom icon packs in the future, much like what's been going on in the PSP community for the past couple of months?

KZU: What does the future hold for the PSP? Are there anymore plans for PS3 & PSP integration?
Dave: We just announced the price drop on PSP which saw a really good bump in sales. We have also announced that we are looking to launch the entertainment download service this year, in addition to God of War coming to the platform. Thanks to Remote Play and the direct wi-fi connection, PS3/PSP integration is something developers can take advantage of right now. I would think as we start looking at this next generation of software you will see more and more game makers taking advantage of it.

More PSP games taking advantage of the PS3 inter-connectivity feature. Why didn't I see that coming?

These excerpts pose some interesting developments and forecasts on the PSP, PS3, and the whole direction that Sony is going with their PlayStation brand. The rest of the full interview is waiting behind the Read link below.

Over at Slashdot, they have featured a short Q&A session with Sony Computer Entertainment honcho, Phil Harrison. In spite of his busy schedule, he managed to thoroughly answer the readers' inquiries...that says a lot about him, right? The questions range from the personal (how he got into the business), the interesting (the homebrew scene and the rumble feature for the SIXAXIS), and the deep (gaming philosophy).

Let's focus with the interesting bits, shall we? Anonymous Coward, maynard, and flitty asked him this question - "if someone manages to get homebrew games running on the PS3, will there be firmware updates?... How does this strategy differ your strategy with PSP homebrew?" To that, he says:

I fully support the notion of game development at home using powerful tools available to anyone...It's a vital, crucial aspect of the future growth of our industry and links well to the subtext of my earlier answers. When I started making games on the Commodore 64 in the 1980's...I might share this with a few friends but not for commercial gain at that time. But the process itself was invaluable in helping me learn to program, to design graphics, animations or sounds and was really the way I opened doors to get into the industry.

Now, those industry doors are largely closed by the nature of the video game systems themselves being closed. So, if we can make certain aspects of PS3 open to the independent game development community, we will do our industry a service by providing opportunities for the next generation of creative and technical talent. Now having said all that, we still have to protect the investment and intellectual property rights of the industry so we will always seek the best ways to secure and protect our devices from piracy and unauthorized hacking that damages the business.

Now Sciros posted a very good question - retaining PS3-exclusives. Are they worried that previously exclusive games are going multiplatform? Phil says that their main concern is "to make sure those games (the selection of meaningful PS3 exclusives) are absolutely the best they can be".

As for the first party controller with rumble question asked by SuperCharlie, Mr. Harrison said that it's a little to early to tell since they have just resolved their legal issues with Immersion. And of course, when talking about the PS3, the question about the price drop is unavoidable. To that, he answered with a simple "we have no plans to drop the price".

Check out the personal and deep bits of the Q&A by clicking on our Read link below.

Business and consumer computer solutions provider Hewlett-Packard, graphics industry contender NVIDIA, Microsoft's PC advocate Games for Windows initiative and even broadband game publisher Trion World Network released a whoosh of hostile air against the next-gen consoles.

They were probably outraged as many other hardcore PC fans were at the 2007 Game Developers Conference's "PC Gaming in an Age of Connected Consoles" panel discussion. Instead, the PC industry leaders formed their own panel, bringing in Microsoft's Games for Windows initiative's boss Rich Wickham and Trion World Network's founder Lars Butler, among other representatives of leading PC industry entities.

Lars was also quick to comment, "I believe the days of the console are numbered. There is one more generation of gaming consoles and that is it."

Backing Butler, NVIDIA's VP Roy Taylor upped the PC's ante by stating, "Our advantage as developers is we know what is coming. And what is coming is far ahead of the console. You will see a huge difference between what you can get on a PC and a console."

In line with this, Hewlett-Packard plans to enter the hardcore gaming market by rolling out a new line of gaming-related hardware, possibly even hobbyist PCs, within the year. It's even claimed that they plan to even provide a curved computer monitor for not only widescreen effect, but for full FPS immersion.

Whether or not the PC industry giants can deliver, we cannot tell, but with PC enthusiasts who know exactly how to make full use of their PC's power and console piracy looming over the horizon, consoles may never be able to say "the PC is dead" ever again.

Phil Harrison keynoted the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2007 and sat down to a 10-minute one on one with Kotaku. He also talked to 1UP about Home, rumble, Little Big Planet and other stuff.

Phil said that having worked on Home for quite some time now, they have wanted to demonstrate it at the right time and the right audience. The GDC demo of Playstation Home, he said, was of perfect timing, and they were pleased with the reactions they got. Asked about his reaction to people claiming that Home was just a reaction to Nintendo's Miis and Xbox Live, Phil had none saying that while Nintendo does some cool stuff, Sony is taking a much different approach

According to him, developers don't have to worry about how to integrate Home into their games. They're also discussing about taking your Home-created avatar and actually moving that into games so that you can play with that character. Having more game characters in the lobby is also something that they want to do.

Phil was also pleased with reaction gained for the LittleBigPlanet. This game allows characters to develop their own gameworld, customize the objects in it, and then have other players play and rate the games made.

Phil Harrison also said that after the Immersion/Sony case was settled, he has nothing more to say to Playstation gamers, with Sony having genuinely kissed and made up with the other company.