Red SixAxis light does NOT mean rumble

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Our 'special' PS3 pad does it too

Monday 9 July 2007
With the packshot of thenew 80GB model of the PS3 sporting a picture of a SixAxis pad with the central PS button lit up in an attractive red hue, a lot of speculation has arisen over its meaning - including hopes that the light means it is a rumble-enabled controller. But sadly, this isn't necessarily the case.

You see, when Sony sent us our special 'debug PS3' (special in that it allows us to play preview code and has 'TEST' written on it - see pic), the controller that came with it featured a red light in the PS button. It lights up when you put the controller on charge. But it doesn't have rumble - it's as light as a normal SixAxis and only different in that it doesn't feature the word 'SixAxis' on it at all. That's possibly due to it being an earlier version of the pad.

However, plugging in another pad (finished version, with SixAxis logo) that also came from Sony doesn't light up the button. No, we don't know why, either. Maybe the controller pictured on the packshot is a pre-production model too, or new firmware will light all our PS buttons.

Sony's press release about the new 80GB model doesn't mention rumble at all, so although the arrival of the new model would be the perfect time to introduce the vibration feature, we'll just have to see what Sony announces. After all, E3's nearly upon us...

Justin Towell
Justin Towell

Justin was a GamesRadar staffer for 10 years but is now a freelancer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.