The Features And Origins Of The Sixaxis Controller

By Author: Vikram Kumar
Total Articles: 9554
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Sony has long been a brand name synonymous with console gaming. Of the various “modern” consoles, Sony’s Playstation was among the first to claim the title, as the original Playstation featured cutting-edge gameplay and graphics for its time. Since then, Sony has battled to stay at the forefront of console gaming technology, with the Playstation and also the Playstation Portable, which it released later to take advantage of the growth in the portable gaming market. While the Playstation and Playstation Portable are really very different platforms, they do have one thing in common – sixaxis controller technology. The iconic Playstation 3 controller revolutionized the world of console gaming, and despite successor controllers having been released since the unveiling of the sixaxis, many gamers still swear by this controller as being the ideal controller for gaming on the Playstation 3.

Taking Over From “Dualshock”

Before the release of the sixaxis, the official controller that was bundled with the Playstation consoles was the Dualshock 2 controller. The controller was so named because it featured vibration ...
... technology, and the controller would vibrate in response to certain in-game events, such as when a player got shot or was injured by an opponent. In fact, if everything had gone according to plan, the sixaxis controller would never even have existed, as Sony planned to replace the aging Dualshock 2 controller with a new Dualshock 3 controller.

However, those plans were derailed when a company sued Sony for patent infringement concerning the vibration technology featured in the Dualshock controllers. Unable to incorporate vibration technology in its new controller, Sony turned instead to motion-sensing technology, which resulted in the release of the sixaxis instead of a Dualshock 3. At the time, motion-sensing technology was still very much a work-in-progress, so Sony presumably had to rush the development of its new motion-sensing controller. The result, contrary to what some critics predicted, was a resounding welcome from the gaming community.

Six Axes Of Freedom

The tagline that accompanied the release of the sixaxis controller was “six axes of freedom”, referring to the number of different axes that the controller could sense motion on. While motion-sensitive gaming has gained a great deal of popularity worldwide due to the rise in mobile gaming, it is pertinent to note that Playstation gamers had access to motion-sensitive gaming long before that, and that mobile gaming certainly does not have a monopoly on motion-sensitive gaming.

The addition of motion-sensing technology really added a brand new aspect to Playstation games, and as the number of games that made full use of the technology rose, so did the popularity of the controller. The sixaxis controller has achieved a sort of cult status among Playstation gamers, and many of them continue to use their sixaxis controllers despite the release of the Dualshock 3 controller, which was supposed to be the official replacement for the sixaxis. The continued popularity of the sixaxis is testament to just how innovative and well-received this particular Playstation 3 controller was.

Despite the release of the official Dualshock 3 controller, the Sixaxis Controller is still an iconic Playstation 3 Controller that gamers around the world continue to use in serious gaming, and GameRiza is one the best places to look if you wish to purchase a sixaxis controller!