Microsoft’s Kudo Tsunoda, general manager of Microsoft Game Studios, took the time to downplay the importance of the rumble feature in controllers while hyping up the potential for the upcoming Kinect device. "Even people playing games with a controller, there's always people doing this [mimes driving motion]. They want to be moving," the Microsoft producer told Edge. "There are natural movements and reactions involved. I've never seen someone doing that from rumble. It's the audiovisual stuff.
"The overwhelming thing we've discovered is that rumble is such a rudimentary form of haptic feedback. It's not like a little rumble in your palm is your whole way of interacting with the world -- it's not like, oh, I stubbed my toe and I get a little rumble in my palm.”
"It's almost laughable the way people hold on to rumble as the holy grail of haptic feedback. We've gone so far past anything that can be done with rumble, or that kind of restrictive thing you have to hold. It's been creatively liberating to work on this stuff."
Though multiple developers and publishers have shown interest in the motion control devices, analysts and consumers are still wary over the potential for the new controllers.
The rumble feature has a rather passionate following; gamers might remember the consumer backlash caused by the removal of the rumble packs from Sony’s PS3 controllers. Ironically, Sony's Phil Harrison labeled rumble a last-gen feature back before Sony was able to launch a DualShock 3 due to the legal battle with Immersion. It's funny to hear a Microsoft exec say the same thing for different reasons years later.
5 Comments
July 8, 2010
How exactly would you "feel" rumble without a controller in your hand? I'm not even sure why Kudo would bring this up. It's irrelevent to Kinect. The normal 360 controller will continue to support rumble. Thats good enough.
July 8, 2010
wow this sounds EXACTLY like what sony said when they didnt include rumble in the ps3 controllers...tactile feedback is very hard to replace
July 9, 2010
I think force-feedback type gloves could be pretty cool. Then you could sort of "touch" 3D objects in space.
July 9, 2010
Other people here have pointed out the irony of this statement, so I'll just add this: rumble is not a last gen feature, its what should be a standard an expected feature in controllers, like analog sticks or buttons. Its valuable sensory feedback that I personally miss when its turned off.
July 9, 2010
If by "last gen" he means "it works", then yeah, right on the money.
Clearly the next-generation evolution of "rumble" isn't going to be "no rumble". What would be cool is some sort of gyro-induced resistance/torque that could be game-controller to give the feeling of resistance or force in an un-tethered controller.
Like those wrist-exercise balls with the internal weighted spinner thingy? That can generate a lot of force! Would be great to be able to feel a Move or a Wii controller "hitting" something in mid-air.
Get to work!