In a rather strange turn of events, Immersion – the infamous patent holders for rumble technology – have been forced to pay Microsoft a one-off fee of around USD 20 million as a result of Sony implementing the technology in its DualShock 3 pad.
According to the legal wranglings, Microsoft tied up a deal when designing the 360 controller that included a clause for a USD 15 million payout from Immersion should Sony ever licence the technology for their own use.
Immersion initially refused to pay when DualShock 3 was eventually released, but Microsoft has now won the resultant legal case for a whopping USD 20.75 million in total.
All of which is rather silly, and hopefully the last word on the subject for any future generations of hardware.