5 ms·
Valve Sued by Immersion over Steam Deck and Index Rumble
- bunbun69 3y ago[flagged]
- yellow_lead 3y agoBy "tech" you mean, a vibrating controller?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- suddenclarity 3y agoThe company is buying up patents and suing people based on the most generic claims. Hardly the good guys.
- shjake 3y agoI’m not so sure that feeding patent trolls is the best idea…
- anakaine 3y agoImmersion was founded in 1993. Haptic technology has been around since the 1960s. Let's not conflate paying inventors with paying patent holders.
- xcv123 3y ago> tech invented by others It's an electric motor spinning a lopsided piece of metal. Primitive caveman "tech" that was known about before that company existed. They're a patent troll.
- caporaltito 3y agoAn idea is not a technology. Making a controller vibrate to give the player or user feedback is an idea. Filing a patent on an idea is called patent trolling and should be heavily punished.
- lofaszvanitt 3y agoJust turn off the rumble, it's a gimmick. It gives zero feels to the overall experience, at least for me.
- ErneX 3y agoI think the haptic feedback of the PS5 DualSense when it’s well implemented adds to the experience. Returnal is a good a example. Also the Astro game that comes bundled with the console.
- criddell 3y agoNo game has made we want to smash my controller more than Returnal. I played it for about a week before I finally gave up. I think it’s the only game since 1980 that I’ve ever quit out of frustration.
- ErneX 3y agoBummer, I got the platinum. I enjoy games that give me a good challenge.
- criddell 3y agoLots of people like it so you may too. It’s one of those games where dying takes you way, way back. When the game is well balanced, I don’t mind, but this one is pretty easy as you go along and then the boss is so much more difficult than anything before. So you die and start over and do it again and again. But because the initial part of the game is pretty easy, you don’t really get much better in the lead up to the first boss. Normally developers include accessibility controls to make the game enjoyable for everybody, but the Returnal developers didn’t. They want you to play their way, or not at all. I ended up choosing the latter. They got my money though, so I suppose in the end, they won.
- gaudat 3y agoGuess what, both PS5 and Switch's haptics are from Immersion.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rob74 3y agoYay, bring on the patent trolls! I wonder what's so different between vibration in a controller and vibration in a phone that prevents them from suing Apple, Samsung, Google et al.? Because if the patents are just about the idea of giving haptic feedback to players via the controller, I'm asking myself why all the billion-$ companies involved preferred to roll over and license the "technology" rather than actually going to court and trying to get the patents invalidated instead...
- Ekaros 3y agoSpecially when the prior art is old and even more modern examples are from 1997. Maybe they just fear the small chance that the sales will be stopped for a period.
- xattt 3y agoCan you imagine a game controller maker being sued in 1997 for some pinball control device made in 1967?
- privacyking 3y agoWell patents have an expiry date.
- Svip 3y agoWhilst this is purely speculation on my part, I have always assumed the reason they settle rather than go to court is because they don't actually want the patents invalidated. The patents serve as a barrier to entry into the market. Had Microsoft - for instance - gone to court, and had the patents invalidated, Valve would not have been sued now. This discourages competition from smaller outlets, and thus allows the big players fewer competitors. Though, again, pure speculation on my part.
- Ekaros 3y agoAlso, could someone like Microsoft or Sony point this company to sue the aftermarket manufactures for controllers for their products. Thus selling more first party stuff.
- trollied 3y agoValve has fought controller-based patent litigation before: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/08/valve-catches-a-break-in-the-steam-controller-patent-trial-versus-ironburg/ https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/08/valve-catches-a-break-...
- rvz 3y ago[flagged]
- gruturo 3y agoSome estimates using reservation numbers, average waiting time and % of cancellations had a ballpark figure of 1 million around last October. Some websites are now quoting 3 million by now, although I don't know how they came to that number, but if the 1M figure of Oct2022 is realistic (I believe it is), then 3M by now does feel reasonable too.
- rvz 3y agoRight, I don't know if those websites have accurate sources for those figures and I would need a direct verifiable source for them to prove those figures. > Some websites are now quoting 3 million by now, although I don't know how they came to that number, but if the 1M figure of Oct2022 is realistic (I believe it is), then 3M by now does feel reasonable too. Given we both don't know about how they derived those figures I can only see this as a pure speculation and I'm afraid that I would have to unfortunately dismiss those guesses and estimations, unless they have verified sources. Even better if it is directly from Steam themselves.
- isaacremuant 3y agoGenuine questions don't come with preconceived conclusions in bad faith. Your tone, the word actually and your final quip about them "being scared" says it all. Question now is, what's your deal? Invested in a narrative where Steam Deck isn't a success?
- rvz 3y agoAsking a question with another question without answering mine directly isn't a good way to start a conversation. It's really a genuine question since it is true that Steam doesn't reveal their Steam Deck sales and figures on this, yet we are already assuming it is a 'success' without benchmarking their performance against the existing generation of gaming consoles. Assuming you have the figures, do you know what they are and how it compares to the current generation of games consoles on the market?
- jeroenhd 3y agoOnce again the current patent system is shown to dampen innovation rather than accelerate it. The fact this type of patent extortion for commonplace features is even possible shows how much the system needs to be improved. Unless these patents will be invalidated, this company will be able to sue any other company for 27 whole years for "thing vibrates when you touch it", "thing vibrates based on what's on the screen", "thing vibrates when you touch if (but with an algorithm somewhere)", "thing vibrates when something happens", "thing vibrates when you move your finger", or "thing vibrates when you push". This is legal extortion.
- Vt71fcAqt7 3y agoTo add, one of the "infringed" patents here: 1. A computer-readable medium having instructions, the instructions including instructions that cause a processor to: detect a first pressure on a first input device; provide a first tactile sensation to the first input device, the first tactile sensation based at least in part on the first pressure; [...][0] In general any patent that doesn't help the reader recreate the invention should not be valid. They should be more like instruction manuals "describing the said invention or discovery, clearly, truly and fully,"[1] rather than a list of vague ideas. [0]https://patents.google.com/patent/US7336260B2 https://patents.google.com/patent/US7336260B2 [1]https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Statutes_at_Large/Volume_1/1st_Congress/2nd_Session/Chapter_7 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Statutes_at_Lar...
- PoignardAzur 3y agoI really hope Valve goes the Cloudflare route and fights these guys all the way to court and further. Patent trolls are despicable.
- something223 3y agoHopefully valve having more money than god helps with this. Surely there's prior art about this.
- antiterra 3y agoSony fought them hard on the earlier patents and lost twice before giving in. That has to be at least a little bit daunting.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tjpnz 3y agoSex toys next?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]