A new market research study finds that gamers want rumble in their controllers, with 72% responding that it "enhances the experience by making the game more fun, involving the player more in the action, increasing realism in the game, and even helping the gamer play better."

Of course, this study was sponsored by Immersion, who has had a continuing quest lately to prove that Sony was wrong to ditch them, so it might be a tad biased. Still, the numbers are interesting.

Respondents said, "I like it and I want it in the game" or "I think it's essential to the fun, realism and overall experience" regarding vibration feedback for racing (71 percent), action/adventure (70 percent), first-person shooter (69 percent), fighting (66 percent), and sports (61 percent) games. Additional comments from gamers stressing the importance of rumble were also highlighted, such as, "It is good in games like Madden because it seems so life-like when guys get hit. I also think that without it Madden would be just an ordinary game," and "For PS2, Gran Turismo 4 needs the rumble feature to connect you to the car so you can more adequately feel how the car is handling."

What's more interesting, and what should serve as a reminder as to how small the group of gamers who pay attention to the news are in relation to the whole, is that 74% of those surveyed didn't even know that rumble had been dropped from the PS3. Upon hearing this, 58% were disappointed. 82% believe a third party controller will come out within a year that will provide rumble, apparently unaware that if the game isn't designed to send a rumble signal (which PS3 games wouldn't), a third party controller wouldn't offer what they're expecting. I've never owned one, but I assume in the absence of a real signal, the rumble is based on the game's sound output, like the old Aura Interactor which was basically just a subwoofer strapped to your back.

The survey starts to get weird when it further delves into this apparent slavish dedication to vibration. 59% of people would choose to have rumble, with or without motion sensing, for the PS3 if given the choice, and 44% said the same even for the Wii. Only 6% of respondents chose motion sensing over rumble on the Wii, which doesn't make any damned sense and makes me wonder if they knew what the Wii was. Further, 5% said they wouldn't buy a PS3 because of the lack of rumble, while another 32% said they were "somewhat less likely."

It's hard for me to imagine the lack of rumble having any noticable effect on PS3 sales, especially since, when the news first broke, no one could come up with more than one or two isolated examples of where they really remembered rumble having an influence on their game experience at all. But maybe the the less hardcore crowd is really, really enamored of things that shake.