Rumble-free PS3 Controller, Microsoft Strategic Commander and Apple Notebook from IBM (PCGH-Retro May 08)

…1997: With the Powerbook 2400c, Apple is once again introducing a new Macintosh notebook with a 180 MHz CPU and 16 MiByte RAM. This is nothing special, but it is the origin of this model: It was designed and manufactured by IBM – the company whose PCs Apple fought against in previous years with little success and which was still portrayed as evil in the famous 1984 Macintosh commercial par excellence.

…2000: For the fifth anniversary of the “Sidewinder” series of gaming input devices, Microsoft is introducing three new products with that name at E3: the joystick Force Feedback 2, the Teamspeak headset Game Voice and the Strategic Commander, a strange mouse-like device with which above all strategy games like Age of Empires should be easy to control. The special feature: The Strategic Commander itself remains firmly on the table, only the upper half is moved. However, the concept did not catch on, a few years later Microsoft stamped the complete Sidewinder series (for the time being).

…2006: At the E3 games fair, Sony is presenting the controller for the upcoming Playstation 3 (PS3) console. Although this looks like that of the PS2, it does not contain a vibration function (“rumble”) – but it does have a motion sensor. Many see it as an attempt to copy the innovative concept of the competing Nintendo Wii, while the missing rumble function is attributed to a licensing dispute over the technology. Sony, however, claims something else: Rumble is simply uninteresting. Two years later – the license dispute is over – vibrating gamepads are suddenly being delivered with the PS3 again.