Sony ordered to pay $90.7 mil. in patent infringement suit

From Japan Today:

The U.S. District Court in Oakland, California, has ordered Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. and its U.S. unit to pay $90.7 million in damages to Immersion Corp. for patent infringement over controllers used with PlayStation game consoles.

In the ruling handed down Thursday, the federal court also ordered Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Entertainment America Inc. to stop selling the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 game consoles using Dualshock controllers as well as more than 40 game software products.

Well, ain't this just super. Not only can I not play Katamari Damacy right now (seeing how I'm still rather poor), but it looks like I may not be able to play it ever! The game is strictly Dualshock controller only!

If I can, I'm going to keep an eye on this one. If it turns out that future PS2s won't have the controller I need, I might as well sell my Christmas Gift to GameStop.

And the sad thing is, I haven't even unwrapped it from its plastic seal yet!