Sony to replace controllers if batteries degrade

[VG Aficionado]

Sony to replace PS3 controllers (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=20528)
Ellie Gibson 12:27 20/10/2006

Wireless pad batteries will last for "many years" - spokesperson

Sony has told GamesIndustry.biz that the company will provide a service to replace wireless PS3 controllers "when and if" their lithium batteries degrade.

A report on GamesRadar.com observed that the pads do not feature removable battery packs, arguing this would render them "effectively useless" as wireless controllers after a certain number of charges.

This, the article claimed, would leave consumers "forced to shell out" for replacements.

But a Sony spokesperson told GI.biz, "This is a purely speculative story and is largely untrue. The latest generation of Lithium Polymer batteries hardly suffer any memory effect at all, so it'll be many years before there's any degradation in terms of battery performance."

The spokesperson went on to confirm, "When and if this happens, then of course we will be providing a service to exchange these items."

A European price point for the pads has yet to be announced, but yesterday SCEA announced they will retail for USD 49.99 (EUR 39). It was also confirmed that PS3 owners will be able to charge and use their controllers via a supplied USB cable.

[BruceWayneIII]

Thanks a lot - maybe that will keep people calm again. +rep (hmm, wasn't allowed to, but anyway).

[Amenophis]

Sony really seems to like replacing batteries ;)

[hey69]

well if you already have started with a couple of million batteries, afew more or less wont change a lot i think :p

[Sephiroth_VII]

Nice to know. Oh, and 69, it's 700.000, not a million yet;).

[McLaren]

maybe now the haters can now shut up about irreplacable batteries.... +rep

[Metal Sphere]

This was to be expected, it's obvious Sony is rather committed to the console. By the way, they're right about it taking years before the battery is completely depleted and can no longer hold a charge. Detractors are merely operating on an extreme "what if" scenario.

Thanks for the info, watch out for incoming +Ref fire.

[OG_Monkey]

this is great. But I was kind of hoping for a $39.99 contorller but its all good. Any news on a headset for the PSe yet? ANyone think we will be able to use bluetooth cell phones headsets?

[Kiosko]

Aww. Now that's nice.

[stanDarsh]

Hopefully these batteries don't explode ;)

Joking aside, I doubt very much that the controller would be replaced like the title suggests, more than likely just the battery.

[TheGreenElf]

Wow...these controllers are much more expensive than expected...that is becoming the worst thing about this new generation lol. All the extra money we pay on controllers...but it's cool that Sony will replace them if needed.

[lips]

its true, they should not degrade. Personnally, I have only charged my cell phone half way every time for the past year, and it suffers no memory. this newer generation of batteries should be even better, I just hope the usb cable can provide enough charge to quickly fill the dual shock battery. But then, sony does have those 3 minutes charging for 3 hours playing batteries in their mp3 players.

[Undercover Cop]

Wow...these controllers are much more expensive than expected...that is becoming the worst thing about this new generation lol. All the extra money we pay on controllers...but it's cool that Sony will replace them if needed.They never said they'll replace them for FREE...

[LaLiLuLeLo]

You might have to pay shipping. Okay.
They never said it wasn't for free.
The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence!

[xbdestroya]

I agree that it will probably cost something though; they're just talking about starting a service to replace them - not do it for free *as* a service. :)

If they did, that would just open them up too much to fraud.

I don't think these things will need much replacing though - besides the battery tech advancements we're starting from a ~30 hour life to begin with. If it's eventually only lasting me 20 hours or so per charge, I'm not going to sweat it. When it gets down to about five, I'm sure I'll be standing in line that very night for PS4.

[cpiasminc]

An older (or cheaper) Li-Ion battery charger often tended to cause some degradation mainly because of over draining or overcharging (a good charger can prevent this entirely, though), which would cause electrolyte to crystallize little by little. Even with that, the half-life is still on the order of hundreds of charges, meaning that by the time the battery degrades to half its original capacity, assuming we can take that "30 hours" on a charge seriously, and it degrades little by little on each charge, you're still left with a little shy of a year of play (and that's total hours, btw).

So really, this amounts to little more than Sony providing service for those controllers that may come out of the box with flawed/defective batteries. If you have a good one, chances are good you'll never replace it, unless you do something seriously wrong.

[PUNK em 733]

That's prolly why they cost 50$.

[Domination]

Ellie Gibson 12:27 20/10/2006

Wireless pad batteries will last for "many years" - spokesperson

Sony has told GamesIndustry.biz that the company will provide a service to replace wireless PS3 controllers "when and if" their lithium batteries degrade.

A report on GamesRadar.com observed that the pads do not feature removable battery packs, arguing this would render them "effectively useless" as wireless controllers after a certain number of charges.

This, the article claimed, would leave consumers "forced to shell out" for replacements.

But a Sony spokesperson told GI.biz, "This is a purely speculative story and is largely untrue. The latest generation of Lithium Polymer batteries hardly suffer any memory effect at all, so it'll be many years before there's any degradation in terms of battery performance."

The spokesperson went on to confirm, "When and if this happens, then of course we will be providing a service to exchange these items."

A European price point for the pads has yet to be announced, but yesterday SCEA announced they will retail for USD 49.99 (EUR 39). It was also confirmed that PS3 owners will be able to charge and use their controllers via a supplied USB cable.

Another rumor shot down. Good job. :thumpsup:

[Domination]

They never said they'll replace them for FREE...


But they also said that they should hold their charge. ;)

[makeitlookreal]

Will they sell a cheaper corded model of the controller perhaps without motion sensing? I want a second controller, but hate to pay 50 dollars for one when most of the time I'll be playing by myself.

[Fats]

Will they sell a cheaper corded model of the controller perhaps without motion sensing? I want a second controller, but hate to pay 50 dollars for one when most of the time I'll be playing by myself.

I'll say no to the lack of motion sensing.

[lshian]

Lithium Ion is not as good as Lithium Polymer. I think Sony putting in Polymer battery in the Sixaxis.

[cpiasminc]

My god, people are really blowing this out of proportion. The time it would take for a lithium battery to degrade is really really long.

For god's sake, a little horse sense couldn't hurt. Take a hypothetical battery and charger with a half-life of 100 charges that can give you the same 30 hours of play on the first charge [which, btw, is worse than even a really bad NiCad]... you sum the result for those 100 charges assuming it drops a certain percentage each charge (approximately 0.7%, in this case), you get a theoretical limit of about 2160 hours of play, assuming you only recharge near drain condition. That's about 90 days of continuous play, stopping only to recharge. Say you play some 5 hours a day... you've still got over 14 months worth of life until the battery's capacity goes down to half. For a Li-Ion or Li-Polymer, you can probably take that figure and multiply it by at least 5 or 6, and that's still assuming that the charging mechanism has no microcontroller (meaning that it's possible to overcharge or charge in reverse or some other error, which is the main cause of degradation to begin with).

[Garfunkel]

wow, thanks for the info CPI, especially the 0.7% figure. +rep

[cpiasminc]

Actually, the 0.7% figure was in line with the hypothetical setup I posed (which is a lot worse than any decent Lithium battery these days). I was just assuming that it would be a perfect exponential decay.

Pe^(rt) = P', and I figured with a half-life of 100 charges, you can basically say
e^(100r) = 0.5.
Solve for r, and plug in a value of 1 for t, and you get the approximate percentage it's dropped down to after 1 charge.

Say for a half-life of 500 charges, you get an average 0.14% drop per recharge rather than 0.7%.

[Garfunkel]

Pe^(rt) = P', and I figured with a half-life of 100 charges, you can basically say
e^(100r) = 0.5.
Solve for r, and plug in a value of 1 for t, and you get the approximate percentage it's dropped down to after 1 charge.

that made a lot of sense...:stunned: :chinese2:

[Hrama]

Hmm... part of that I know was the formula for compounding continuous interest...

[lshian]

I definitely sure there are battery processor inside the sixaxis as lithium don't like to be overcharged, and it will cause fire for overcharging, and can kill your battery instantly with fully overdischarged.

Nowaday, lithium polymer battery could take 1000 charges. With 1000 divide by 365days you get 3 years plus life. Even if the battery degrade to half of it capacity after 18months, you still can play 15hrs and hell 15hrs of gameplay is sleepless night.

[woundingchaney]

I would have rather seen replaceable battery packs simply so one could swap packs when the batteries get low. Although, I seriously doubt many suffer any problems from the internal battery in the Sony controllers.

I think the whole controller design is well done (although Im still hesitant on "Tilt").

Since the controller uses a USB port this would mean that we could charge them on our pcs instead of the PS3 (which I prefer).

[Z]

I would have rather seen replaceable battery packs simply so one could swap packs when the batteries get low. Although, I seriously doubt many suffer any problems from the internal battery in the Sony controllers.

if the charge gets low, simply connect it to any USB port (PS3 or otherwise).
I think the whole controller design is well done (although Im still hesitant on "Tilt").
then don't. tilting on PS3 is an option and not a necessity like with Rev. ;)
Since the controller uses a USB port this would mean that we could charge them on our pcs instead of the PS3 (which I prefer).
hooking it uo to any USB port is great. I can charge it from my laptop, PC, PS3, which ever is nearer. :)

[woundingchaney]

if the charge gets low, simply connect it to any USB port (PS3 or otherwise).

then don't. tilting on PS3 is an option and not a necessity like with Rev. ;)

hooking it uo to any USB port is great. I can charge it from my laptop, PC, PS3, which ever is nearer. :)

I would still like to see a replaceable battery. Instead of hooking it to a USB device one could simply swap packs and continue to play wirelessly while the other pack charges.

Unless of course the use of tilt is a main feature in the game itself. I doubt that tilt will be have a toggle feature in every game or instance. (this is more of a personal opinion on tilt, I realize many are eagerly anticipating its use in gameplay)

[OmniCloud]

Yes wounding we are! PS3 doesn't have rumble anymore-something has to make up for it...I suspect that the more tilt funtionality a game has-the less you'll care about rumble. So yes, I'm hoping that devs out there aren't looking at the controller as a gimmick or a Wii ripoff because it's clearly not. Looks like the fellas at Lair aren't the only ones excited about the controlle either.

Ward's Paradise City
Criterion's Director of Game design talks Burnout 5, the PS3 and other projects.
by Jeff Haynes
October 20, 2006 - At EA's party before the Sony Gamer's Day event, we managed to ask Alex Ward a couple of questions that we've really wanted to know, especially about Burnout 5. As racing fans know, Ward's development team at Criterion have been working on completely redefining the fast paced car carnage experience. We tried to get a few details about how Burnout 5 would work, particularly with the announced concept of never having to access a menu screen to access an race event. Ward stated that the team is "really trying to make a very seamless experience that you can just drive around. We're trying to build it to be a satisfying experience, and we're trying to move away from scripted gameplay to something you do yourself. That has its own strengths and it's own weaknesses. We're looking to solve some of the problems that some of the more open games have done. It's still quite early in the game's development, and we're still working on it."



Ward's answer raised an interesting question: If the game is designed to be a seamless experience from start to finish, how would you go about repairing damage to smashed cars or even change the car that you're driving? For instance, if you wanted to change from a muscle car to, say, a fire truck or another large vehicle, how would you go about that? While Ward didn't answer some of the damage questions to avoid spoiling some details, he did answer a few details about the cars. "We've rewritten the handling (of the cars) completely. None of this game uses any code from before. As for larger vehicles, you'll have to wait and see but the cars are different -- they handle differently. Some of them can check traffic, some can't."

While checking traffic is just one of the modes that Burnout vets have become accustomed to, another feature that stands out is revenge takedowns and rivals. We asked how rivals would potentially crop up in the game as you race through the streets of Paradise City. Ward said, "In the offline game, rivals will appear, because the world is always open. The way the game experience shifts from one district to another is based on what you've been doing and who your rivalry is with at any one time."

Of course, we did have to ask if the development team was going to use Guns N' Roses "Paradise City" as the theme song for Burnout 5. Unfortunately GNR fans, it's not to be: "We looked into it," Ward said with a laugh. "but it's too expensive. But the name (of the city) comes from that. We were writing something about the game and someone said that Burnout satisfies the appetite for destruction. We thought, 'Oh yeah, we like Guns N' Roses.' They said, 'Take me down to Paradise City" -- We thought, 'Take me down IN Paradise City."

We also checked on whether or not Criterion's been having any problems developing for the PS3, which Ward dismissed. "It's totally fine with us. We're real specialists on the hardware anyway. We've been working on the PlayStation 3 for a long time, and thinking about it all through the PlayStation 2 days, so no complaints from our side." He also had a ringing endorsement for the SIXAXIS controller when we asked him if it was a hot peripheral or simply a hyped up gimmick. "It's utterly fantastic. It's very hot -- scorching hot. It's very cool, and I'm very excited about that. If you watch people play our game, they move their controller in their hands anyway. It lends itself very well to us." He didn't specifically mention how the controller might be used for the PS3 version of the game, nor did he answer any questions about any PS3 exclusives or downloadable for Burnout 5 as well.

Ward was willing to answer a few questions about some other projects his team has worked on, such as a sequel to Black 2 potentially seeing the light of day on either current gen or next gen systems.. "We hope to make another game sometime in the future. I don't think we'll make anything on the current gen again -- we're totally focused on the PS3 and the 360 now." He also answered a question about a title that quickly disappeared shortly after being announced around the same time as Black, the short-lived project known as Dust Storm. When we asked if it might appear as one of the PS3's downloadable games or a fully fledged title for the next gen system, Ward said, "The downloadable game concept is really interesting. I don't think that project would be a downloadable game, though. It's a game that we announced at the same time (as Black) and started development on, and we postponed it to make Burnout 3. Hopefully it'll come back at some point."Playing Tony Hawk on PS3 also seems to be a different experience as well. Games that used rumble WELL will indeed be missed, but I think the tilt opens up so many more doors that it will fade out the more games utilize the feature. Although adding both will be the most favorable choice..

[Hrama]

"It's utterly fantastic. It's very hot -- scorching hot. It's very cool, and I'm very excited about that.
Oxymoron much? Anyway, he certainly sounded quite ecstatic about it and I am looking forward to seeing more of Burnout Five as well.

[venomv]

So....is it hot or cool.......


Unless of course the use of tilt is a main feature in the game itself. I doubt that tilt will be have a toggle feature in every game or instance. (this is more of a personal opinion on tilt, I realize many are eagerly anticipating its use in gameplay)

I'm hoping it won't be required in very many games, even though I really like the idea the novelty may ware off, much like rumble....

[RavenFox]

Wow nice find VG but Sony has always had great customer support. Im not surprised much by this news but good to see it nevertheless.
+reppa

[cpiasminc]

that made a lot of sense...
o___o
Wow... You know, while I'm fairly aware that lack of grasp of exponentials is quite normal for a 16-year old student in the US, it doesn't make it any less sad. It was elementary school stuff for me, so I can't help being a little taken aback.

Hmm... part of that I know was the formula for compounding continuous interest...
Applies for any exponential curve model, really. Whether its compound interest or radioactive decay or whatever. It's actually rather interesting to see the proof that it even works for discretely quantized axes as well.

I definitely sure there are battery processor inside the sixaxis as lithium don't like to be overcharged, and it will cause fire for overcharging, and can kill your battery instantly with fully overdischarged.

Nowaday, lithium polymer battery could take 1000 charges.
Most batteries these days and a lot of devices will prevent you from doing such things to harm the battery. Much the same way that cell phones will auto-off on you if the battery is really low so you never really drain it completely (completely drained batteries can't be recharged anyway because they basically become a resistor at that point).

Curious about your 1000 charges figure. Is that a half-life figure or a time-to-death figure? I seem to recall someone on B3D saying that older Li-Ion batteries had an average half-life of around 500 charges.

tilting on PS3 is an option and not a necessity like with Rev.
AFAIK, it's an option on a per-game basis, though I'm not sure what the TRCs say about tilt and making it optional or not. I'm pretty sure, though, Wii games don't have a TRC about providing the user with both motion sensing and non-motion sensing gameplay options (can't say for sure, as I'm not doing anything with the Wii). Either way, though, there's no requirement on the Wii that all games must use the motion sensing features, AFAIK. Zelda, FWIW, has only demonstrated limited use of it.

[Hrama]

Applies for any exponential curve model, really. Whether its compound interest or radioactive decay or whatever. It's actually rather interesting to see the proof that it even works for discretely quantized axes as well.

Ah, thought it had more uses than that, just couldn't quite remember. I also didn't know that completely dead batteries couldn't be charged. As always, a very competent and informative post as always CP, thanks.