Sony may get feedback. Gizmodo loses Sony but gets them back
It's been an eventful few days for Sony (and presumably the PS3).
First, there are reports that Sony has been able to settle it's long standing dispute over the force feedback in its controllers.
Now we've covered this story in the past and Sony has given many "opinions" on the matter. But, as readers continued to point out - Sony wasn't discontinuing the use of the technology because of interference with sixaxis. They were doing it because they were being sued for stealing the technology.
Now it appears that the case may be over.
According to Next-Gen, the case between Sony and Immersion (the company that owns the rights to vibrating game controller technology) has been settled. It even appears that there is some sort of "partnership" in the works to further deveiop the technology.
So, did Immersion get what it wanted?
According to the article: "The specific financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed by the companies in a press release, although Immersion's form-8K filed today shows that under the agreement, Immersion will receive from Sony 12 quarterly payments of $1.875 million beginning in March totaling $22.5 million, along with fees and royalties. Immersion has also agreed not to enforce the permanent injunction issued in March 2005."
That's about 1/4 of the original 90 million in damages they were seeking. That is unless you consider future earnings that Immersion may recieve because of the technology appearing in upcoming consoles.
So I guess this is why Sony came down so hard on Kotaku for leaking a story about the company's plans for a Mii like community.
It looked like all was lost for Kotaku, and that they would no longer be invited to Sony's press events. But yesterday their differences were resolved (sort of) and Kotaku appears to be in Sony's good books.
This really is good news for Kotaku. After all, they are one of the largest sources of PS3 news out there. to lose access to Sony would have been hard on Kotaku, and the console news world in general.
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