The Daily Yomiuri: New versions of familiar video game products were a major if unofficial theme of the Tokyo Game Show 2007, which boasted a total attendance of 193,000 over four days (Sept. 20-23) at Makuhari Messe in Chiba.
The most prominent example of this theme was Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. President Kazuo Hirai’s unveiling of the Dualshock 3 game controller during his keynote speech at the opening of the annual trade show.
Set to go on sale in Japan in November and designed for use with Sony’s Playstation 3 (PS3) game platform, the new controller combines two previously separate functions. One is motion-sensing six-axis control, which allows players to tilt or turn the controller in real space to direct the onscreen action. The other is the motion-creating Dualshock feature, which causes the controller to vibrate in the player’s hands in sync with onscreen events such as crashes and explosions.
“At the beginning we thought it would be very difficult technologically (to combine the two functions),” Hirai said, but a large number of customer requests made the effort necessary.
Hirai also announced that the Playstation Portable (PSP) handheld game device, which can be used as a mobile extension of the PS3, is now capable of receiving “one-seg” TV broadcasts using a small tuner attachment that went on sale the same day. One-seg programs can already be viewed on some mobile phones, but the PSP has the advantage of a larger screen.
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