Immersion, known for rumble technology, went in-depth about business strategies, but our eyebrows were raised when the company brought up a promising concept. Immersion is not only working with Nokia, Samsung, and LG to bring the VibeTonz technology to mobile phones and PDAs, but is also considering to bring handheld gaming devices some rumble love.

Immersion CEO Victor Viegas told Game Daily in a lengthy interview:

The effects and strength you can get with a small motor is really amazing... you really feel the staccato of a machine gun, you really feel when you're pressing on a piece of glass on a touch screen that you're pressing a low profile button... This would translate quite easily to the Nintendo DS, PSP or almost any mobile device.

Sony has signed a deal with Immersion before, with Viegas promising technical proposals for PlayStation products, so it's likely to see Sony PSP with rumble. Nintendo, on the other hand, always used its own ideas like the Wii Remote's rumble function.

"We have not yet formally taken a position on whether it's infringing or not infringing any of our IP," said Viegas. About future plans, he continued, "We've made it clear that we want to work with them as close as possible and we've shown them quite a few new technologies that we think make their products a little bit better."

Fansite "Killzone Unit" just had a bit of Q&A with SCEA. After asking their readers for possible questions to ask, it was none other that David Karraker himself who spoke for the company and answered some rather burning questions. There were a lot of issues raised, and some clarification on certain rumors we've been hearing for the past couple of days/weeks/months now. Some of the more interesting parts of the interview:

KZU: Now that Sony and Immersion have settled, is rumble going to eventually make it's way to the PlayStation 3 SIXAXIS controller?
Dave: We are currently in discussions with Immersion on how we can incorporate their technologies into our products. No word on when that will happen.

Take note, he said "when" and not "if". Is the rumble feature as good as confirmed then?

KZU: Regarding the XMB, are there plans to allow users to customize their backgrounds similar to the PSP?
Dave: Yes, we are currently exploring numerous options that allow people to make their PS3 experience more personalized.

Will this open up homebrew custom firmware and XMB custom icon packs in the future, much like what's been going on in the PSP community for the past couple of months?

KZU: What does the future hold for the PSP? Are there anymore plans for PS3 & PSP integration?
Dave: We just announced the price drop on PSP which saw a really good bump in sales. We have also announced that we are looking to launch the entertainment download service this year, in addition to God of War coming to the platform. Thanks to Remote Play and the direct wi-fi connection, PS3/PSP integration is something developers can take advantage of right now. I would think as we start looking at this next generation of software you will see more and more game makers taking advantage of it.

More PSP games taking advantage of the PS3 inter-connectivity feature. Why didn't I see that coming?

These excerpts pose some interesting developments and forecasts on the PSP, PS3, and the whole direction that Sony is going with their PlayStation brand. The rest of the full interview is waiting behind the Read link below.

Over at Slashdot, they have featured a short Q&A session with Sony Computer Entertainment honcho, Phil Harrison. In spite of his busy schedule, he managed to thoroughly answer the readers' inquiries...that says a lot about him, right? The questions range from the personal (how he got into the business), the interesting (the homebrew scene and the rumble feature for the SIXAXIS), and the deep (gaming philosophy).

Let's focus with the interesting bits, shall we? Anonymous Coward, maynard, and flitty asked him this question - "if someone manages to get homebrew games running on the PS3, will there be firmware updates?... How does this strategy differ your strategy with PSP homebrew?" To that, he says:

I fully support the notion of game development at home using powerful tools available to anyone...It's a vital, crucial aspect of the future growth of our industry and links well to the subtext of my earlier answers. When I started making games on the Commodore 64 in the 1980's...I might share this with a few friends but not for commercial gain at that time. But the process itself was invaluable in helping me learn to program, to design graphics, animations or sounds and was really the way I opened doors to get into the industry.

Now, those industry doors are largely closed by the nature of the video game systems themselves being closed. So, if we can make certain aspects of PS3 open to the independent game development community, we will do our industry a service by providing opportunities for the next generation of creative and technical talent. Now having said all that, we still have to protect the investment and intellectual property rights of the industry so we will always seek the best ways to secure and protect our devices from piracy and unauthorized hacking that damages the business.

Now Sciros posted a very good question - retaining PS3-exclusives. Are they worried that previously exclusive games are going multiplatform? Phil says that their main concern is "to make sure those games (the selection of meaningful PS3 exclusives) are absolutely the best they can be".

As for the first party controller with rumble question asked by SuperCharlie, Mr. Harrison said that it's a little to early to tell since they have just resolved their legal issues with Immersion. And of course, when talking about the PS3, the question about the price drop is unavoidable. To that, he answered with a simple "we have no plans to drop the price".

Check out the personal and deep bits of the Q&A by clicking on our Read link below.

Looks like Sony lawyers are due back in court. After Immersion won more than $90 million for its Dual Shock patent suit last March, another company, Agere Systems is taking Sony through the legal circus.

According to the semiconductor company, Sony committed patent infringements on eight products, including the PSP, PS2, PS3 (based on announced specs), VAIO computers, Handycams, Walkman players, Memory Stick Duos, and Location Free TV. The technology being contested are the LAN technology and tungsten plugs, among other things.

The lawsuit claims Sony willingly infringed on the patents and - here's the scary part - Agere wants to see Sony's books so it can determine how much money they can wring from the electronics giant. Sony denies the charges, naturally, and claims some of the patents issued by Agere omitted important information when it filed for them. Does that means some of the patents were filed properly but Sony used them anyway?

According to lawsuit-magnet Sony, it has the rights to use seven of the eight patents through a 1989 cross-licensing deal with AT&T and Lucent (whose microelectronics group became Agere Systems). Sony believes the patents in question are invalid and wants the case flushed down the judge's toilet. This is not the first time Agere sued Sony. By the way, Sony counter-sued Agere last month and demanded a jury trial.

Looks like a job tailored-made for Denny Crane.