I would just like to debunk the whole "Sony had the idea for the sixaxis years before Wii was even announced"" theory.
If Sony had tilt functionality planned for the Playstation 3 for all these years before the Wii was announced, then why didn't Sony announce or even suggest their plan to the press during the unveiling of the original PS3 controller? Similarly to how Nintendo hinted upon unique design at E3 and later unveiled the redesign along with the motion sensing capability a month later?
After the failed lawsuit with Immersion, Sony decided to minimise the rising cost of Playstation 3 by disregarding rumble and redesigning the Playstation 3 controller instead, rather than paying the licensing fee's; and thus the Boomerang was born. But Sony's creative vision wasn't actually very good, and was widely criticized by Playstation fans shortly after the unveiling.
Nintendo was stirring up interest among the public with their new motion sensing technology. Eventually Sony decided to dump the original design after the announcement, and retrieve a patent filed by their engineering team, which was designed to mimic the Gameboy Color's Tilt add-on (which was already within the public domain at this point).
They updated the SNES-era side buttons by including two modern analogue triggers and came up with the company slogan that we have all come to know and love: "Rumble was last gen. Tilt is next gen."
Sony. Copied. Nintendo.
Log in to comment