if this is true ill guess nintendo dont worry since they get huge amount of patent money so they basically can lean back while the cash flows in :)

I can't read that article, but i hope everyone knows that the picture is a photoshop job. It was made when sony announced the SIXAXIS.

@ Sulla

Now way sony would infringe on an nintendo patents.  They'd surely come up with their own technology.  six axis already has some similar stuff going on.

The CDROM addons for the Japanese PC Engine were also successful add-ons, there were even more PC Engine games requiring a CDROM than which that didn't:

Peripherals like the Eyetoy are exactly what I'm talking about. It's a niche product (I'm quite confident that no more than 5-10% of the PS2 install base owns one) which plays a very limited number of games. How many total games are compatible with the Eyetoy? I have no idea, but I'd be shocked if it were more than 25. Remember, the PS2's total library of games is approaching 10,000 at this point. Eyetoy games are a drop in the proverbial sea of PS2 titles.

Also, look who's publishing those games you listed: Sony. You don't see third parties leaping at the chance to make Eyetoy games, do you? The install base is too low for anything beyond a limited selection of games, which Sony can easily fill themselves. The market just does not exist to support hundreds of Eyetoy games - not enough people own the thing!

Peripherals can absolutely be "pretty successful". But you can't reinvent your console around a new control scheme years after it's been released. That's an impossibility. As I said initially, Sony may be able to do enough sales to make a profit off this kind of a venture - just nowhere near enough to make any kind of dent in Wii sales.

Don Wii,

While I do not expect the implemetation to be as strong as the Wii I can see thsi providing a big bump to the PS2 and it will actually help the Wii because it will promote the controllers experience at a lower price point. Developers will support it in a similiar fashion to some of the PS2 ports in otherwords nunchuck/classic controller and waggle set ups. It will not get support from every game nor will more than one or two games ever fully utilize it because it is an addon. However some quick simple games and the new controller will definitely boosts some sales for a 100 million plus selling console.

@ Sulla

I don't think such a controller should be mandatory for new PS2 users, as I think the bulk of the existing PS2 games library is better played with the standard PS2 controller.

yup the PS controllers are SNES controlers with two extra shoulder buttons(originally added as a way to control in 3-d space) It is  a derivitave of the SNES controller that Sony worked on for the SNES Playstation(CD-ROM add on). Analog and Rumble were tacked on later.

The layout of the buttons come from the SNES and not the genesis(diaond pattern) the game and watch had the first D-pad which was used for the NES.  The controllers after the NES have been much more standard and most not all features appeared on the NES->SNES->N64->Wii?. Where as before the controlers were very different from system to system until this generation you could pick up a GC/PS2/XBOX and be almost familiar with the buttons and controls and it was only a matter of preference and experience.

All that aside. Expect in the next gen for all controllers to have motion sensing and pointers. Wether companies decide to keep the number of buttons on the controller the same or make tham one handed or two handed controllers woudl seem to be more debatable.