One of the best examples of corporate white lies is the Playstation 3 Sixaxis controller. When the official controller was announced Sony played up its so-called Sixaxis feature — which is basically a motion sensing capability similar to the revolutionary Nintendo Wiimote. Some people thought it was an obvious cribbing of the Nintendo Wii’s unique selling point but stolen idea or not the concept was quite cool. What made people raise their eyebrows though was the very obvious absence of a rumble feature. According to Sony, the rumble feature would negatively affect the sensitive controls of the Sixaxis — which is a strange claim given that the Wiimote also has a rumble feature.
Gaming industry experts, however, knew that this was just Sony’s way of skirting the negative issue of Sony’s losing court case with Immersion. It was the company’s way of not paying anything anymore to Immersion. But that was then…
With Sony now officially friends again with Immersion, the rumble feature will be made available again with a newly retooled Playstation 3 Sixaxis controller. As white lies go, the one Sony did was quite obvious. Obfuscation is really not one of Sony’s strongest suits. They should take a page or two from Microsoft‘s book of corporate double-talk.
[tags]Playstation 3, Sixaxis, Sony, Nintendo[/tags]