Force feedback puts motors in a controller so that the game can push back: a wheel that judders over kerbs and fights a slide, a stick that kicks with recoil. Atari’s Hard Drivin’ cabinet had a motorised steering column in 1989; Immersion’s Louis Rosenberg pitched the modelled version to Edge in 1996; and by Christmas 1998 PC magazines were reviewing a crop of force-feedback wheels and sticks and complaining that the games had not caught up.
Fast facts
- In the arcade: Hard Drivin’ (Atari Games, 1989) — a “centre-feel steering wheel and column that supply continuous feedback as you drive” (ACE, April 1989).
- The definition: “an input device, like a traditional joystick, but also an output device” — Louis Rosenberg, Immersion (Edge, August 1996).
- On the PC: CH Products Force FX joystick (due autumn 1996, on sale by May 1997); Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Pro stick, $149.95 (reviewed November 1997); SideWinder Force Feedback Wheel, $199 (1998); Logitech WingMan Force stick (1998).
- Two standards: Microsoft’s, and Immersion’s I-Force 2.0 licensed to CH Products, Thrustmaster and Logitech — both driven through DirectX (PC Zone, Christmas 1998).
- Distinct from: rumble, which shakes the controller without pushing against the player: Nintendo’s Rumble Pak (1997) and Sony’s DualShock (1997).
Hard Drivin’
ACE saw Atari’s cabinet at its world premiere in early 1989, “some three years in development” and without “a hydraulic to be seen” — the effect came through the controls, not the seat. The report describes “the centre-feel steering wheel and column that supply continuous feedback as you drive, juddering over rough ground, or yanking your hands all over the shop if the car spins”. The car had a clutch and a four-speed shift, and the machine remembered the best lap for a head-to-head “Challenge Lap”.
Immersion
Edge’s 1996 survey of controllers put force feedback above every other advance: it “promise[s] to open up whole new ways of experiencing a video or computer game”. Rosenberg, president of Immersion Corp, defined it as “basically a joystick that is an input device, like a traditional joystick, but also an output device”, with “actuators on each of the axes” so “the computer can independently command a force to the X or the Y axis” — “Essentially, it’s a robot … that looks like a joystick that sits on your desk.”
He drew the line between his devices and the arcade at modelling. Cabinets like Daytona USA were “just sending out this canned routine that the player feels” — the same jerk on every wall regardless of speed — whereas “What we can do is really model the dynamics of what it should feel like when a car bumps into a wall, or when a ball hits into a paddle”, “the difference between” “an old PC speaker that just makes buzzes” and “a Sound Blaster”. Edge tried the demos — springs on screen that resisted the stick, a “puddle” that felt like “stirring paint”, two-player Pong with rubber paddles — and judged the combination of visual and physical cues “more truly immersive than any advance in graphics or processor technology Edge has seen”. Greg Stearns of CH Products, one of Immersion’s licensees, put the pitch in a sentence: “Right now we amaze the eyes and the ears. Now, with force feedback, we can add one more thing to the list of ‘feel goods’.”
On the PC
Immersion’s technology reached the shops in CH Products’ Force FX joystick, which Computer Gaming World called “the first consumer force-feedback joystick to hit the market”. Denny Atkin flew Fighter Duel with a prototype for Computer Gaming World in November 1996, when it was due to ship at the end of September, and came back “a definite convert”: going back to an ordinary stick was “like downgrading from a top-of-the-line programmable fighter stick to an old Atari digital joystick”. The stick fought back when he pulled out of a fast dive, and shook as a warning before a stall. The motors made it big. CGW’s guide to flight controllers in May 1997 described its “huge, heavy bottom” for the motors, and noted that it used Immersion’s I-Force programming interface, which games such as Warbirds, Air Warrior II and Need for Speed SE already supported. Microsoft, the magazine added, was “planning to muck up the works with a standard of its own”.
Microsoft’s SideWinder Force Feedback Pro reached Computer Gaming World in November 1997 at $149.95. Atkin counted it as a second-generation stick, after the Force FX, with motors in the handle for recoil and resistance and effects “such as driving over a rough surface or an idling engine vibration”. A year later the wheels had arrived: CGW’s 1998 holiday guide found none more exciting than Microsoft’s $199 Force Feedback Steering Wheel — “the jarring bump of the road, the grinding of metal on metal, even the simple idling of your motor” — and PC Zone’s Christmas roundup tested three motorised steering wheels among models “from cheapies with a street price of less than £50, through to models costing — gulp — over £150”. Its description is the working definition: “hit a kerb or another car and you’ll feel a sudden impact; suffer a blow-out and the wheel will judder violently; veer off on to grass and you should feel the control slipping.”
Both magazines said the same thing about the software. CGW’s Dave Salvator: “Force-feedback is another one of those technologies in which the hardware is leading the software. Game development lags, but there’s a crop of force-feedback hardware at the ready.” PC Zone: “On the PC, however, we’re very much at the mercy of game designers” — TOCA Touring Car managed “just simple kerb-hit effects”, Ultim@te Race Pro let you “literally feel the car sliding slightly out of control”, and Grand Prix Legends, “racing game of the moment”, supported none of it. The devices needed “bidirectional communication”, which is why Logitech’s WingMan Force made a point of USB, and they split across “two competing standards”: Microsoft’s own and Immersion’s I-Force 2.0, both reached through DirectX so that a game supporting one usually supported the other.
Rumble
Vibration shakes a controller without pushing its stick or wheel in a chosen direction. Nintendo’s Rumble Pak and Sony’s DualShock made that sensation part of console play. Their entries cover the peripherals’ launches and reception; the distinction here is what the motors can communicate. A rumble can signal an impact, while the actuators Rosenberg described can apply resistance along a control’s axes.
Rumble went into the standard pads; force feedback in the full sense stayed with wheels and flight sticks, and the patents behind both ended up in court: Immersion sued Sony over the DualShock’s vibration in 2002, a case the DualShock entry follows. When Sony launched the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller in 2020, it brought resistance back to the pad itself, with “adaptive triggers” in the L2 and R2 buttons “so you can truly feel the tension of your actions, like when drawing a bow to shoot an arrow”.
Sources
- ACE issue 19, April 1989, pp. 22–23: Andy Smith’s report on Hard Drivin’ at its premiere (three years in development, no hydraulics, the clutch and four-speed shift, the steering wheel and column, the Challenge Lap).
- Edge issue 35, August 1996, pp. 53–56, game controllers feature: force feedback as the greatest advance in controllers; Louis Rosenberg of Immersion on actuators, the “robot”, arcade “canned” effects and modelled forces; the spring, puddle and Pong demos; Greg Stearns of CH Products.
- Denny Atkin, “Get a Hold of This Action”, Computer Gaming World issue 148, November 1996, p. 261: the CH Force FX prototype with Fighter Duel, its ship date, the resistance and stall effects.
- Computer Gaming World issue 154, May 1997, p. 114: flight controller guide, the Force FX as “the first consumer force-feedback joystick to hit the market”, the I-Force interface and the games supporting it, Microsoft’s rival standard.
- Denny Atkin, “Use the Force”, Computer Gaming World issue 160, November 1997, pp. 266–267: Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback Pro review ($149.95, second generation after the Force FX, motors in the handle, the driving and engine effects).
- Computer Gaming World issue 173, December 1998, p. 191: Holiday Hot 100, Microsoft Force Feedback Steering Wheel ($199); p. 333: Dave Salvator’s review of the Logitech WingMan Force (“the hardware is leading the software”, bidirectional communication, serial and USB).
- Warren Chrismas, “Behind the Wheel”, PC Zone issue 71, Christmas 1998, pp. 156–157: steering wheel roundup (prices, force feedback effects, TOCA Touring Car, Ultim@te Race Pro, Grand Prix Legends, the Microsoft and I-Force 2.0 standards and DirectX).
- Nintendo Power issue 96, May 1997, pp. 38–39: Star Fox 64 preview, the Rumble Pak and its motor.
- Nintendo Official Magazine issue 57, June 1997, p. 28: the Rumble Pak’s vibration feedback.
- Edge issue 46, June 1997, p. 68: Star Fox 64 review (the Jolt Pack in Japan and its arcade lineage).
- Hideaki Nishino, “Introducing DualSense, the new wireless game controller for PlayStation 5”, PlayStation Blog, 7 April 2020 (web, secondary): haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. https://blog.playstation.com/2020/04/07/introducing-dualsense-the-new-wireless-game-controller-for-playstation-5/