Sixaxis

The Sixaxis is the official Manette of the game console PlayStation 3 of Sony. It succeeds the DualShock 2, of which it takes again the general design. The controller with the characteristic to integrate a system of recognition of movement, thus offering a novel mode of interaction with the plays.

Description

Term “SIXAXIS”, a Palindrome, refers to the sensor of movement to 6 degrees of freedom implemented in the lever. This device makes it possible the console to detect the orientation of rotation and the acceleration of translation of the lever on the three three-dimensional axes.

The system is generally used as complement, to reinforce the immersion and to vary the experiment of play. For example, in Resistance: Fall off Man , the player can be released from a body with body with the enemy by shaking the lever. Other plays like Warhawk or Lair , where one respectively directs there planes and dragons, should particularly exploit this functionality. It is the case of plays PlayStation Network, like FlOw or Super Rub' a' Dub , which is entirely based on this principle. Lastly, the creator of play Hideo Kojima says being interested by the device and hopes to exploit it in Metal GEAR Solid 4: Guns off the Patriots .

Thanks to technology Bluetooth and the presence of an integrated battery (nonremovable), the lever becomes without wire with 30 an announced hour endurance. It is reloaded by connecting the lever to the console with a cable USB (provided). Four LED located on the section make it possible to distinguish the levers between them. To 7 controllers can be managed simultaneously by the console.

The ergonomics of the lever underwent some evolutions:

a button with the PlayStation logo is placed in the center of the controller gives access the interface Cross Media Bar or to light and extinguish the console.
the buttons L2 and R2 located on the section were replaced by triggers whose amplitude allows a more precise control.
the angle of inclination of the analogical joysticks was slightly increased in order to increase the sensitivity of the orders (which passes from 256 to 1024 positions) and to instigate handling.
For these the last two elements (analogical keys L2/R2 and joystick), the precision of answer was improved with a quantity of information passing from 8 to 10 bits.
Lastly, the lever is lighter of 138g.

The lever however is stripped of engines solenoids, which allow the vibrations. To justify this disappearance, Sony put in front of the technical reasons and of cost to regulate them. The observers have however advanced the legal disagreement opposing Sony to the american company Immersion, holder of patents related to the technology of vibration of the DualShock. In March 2007, Sony and Immersion announced to have put an end to their litigation and to have undertaken a new partnership and in September 2007, Sony announced the DualShock 3, a new model which implements the vibrations in addition to function of recognition of movement. DualShock 3 was launched in November 2007 in Japan and is envisaged in spring 2008 in Europe and North America.

Windows compatibility

The lever of Playstation 3 can be connected to a PC equipped with Windows XP or Vista. That is possible by installing the data-processing Pilote adequate and by connecting Sixaxis to the computer using the extension USB. The use of the recognition of movement and connection Bluetooth are however impossible.

See too

DualShock

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