Nintendo and Microsoft Are Far Ahead Of Sony In Terms Of Rumble Functionality, Says Immersion CEO

You probably don’t know who Immersion is- this is the company that brings us the rumble and vibration hardware that is used inside of Xbox, Nintendo, and PlayStation consoles. In fact, they are so important, that Sony had a lawsuit with them in 2005-2007 and the PS3 ended up having to ship initially with a controller lacking rumble entirely.

So, you know- these guys are fairly important. They are basically responsible for our controllers having haptic feedback functionality. And now, President and CEO of Immersion, Vic Viegas, has said something the rest of us have long believed- that Sony’s vibration technology is far inferior to Microsoft and Nintendo’s.

“Sony is the only major console provider, who has basically not updated its rumble feature since the late 90s”, Viegas said. “Whereas others, like our licensees Microsoft and Nintendo have continued their investments in advanced haptics.

“Microsoft has introduced trigger functionality in the Xbox One and Nintendo has leaped ahead of the market with HD rumble”, he said.

The HD Rumble functionality in the Switch controllers is truly something else; meanwhile, the trigger specific haptic feedback on the Xbox One controller is great, too. I must admit that compared to how precise vibration feels with HD Rumble, Sony’s vibration feels almost… blunt in comparison. Hopefully this is something Sony invests in with the PS5 and DualShock 5.