In a recent interview, Sony Computer Entertainment America president Kaz Hirai said that the “strategic” move to drop rumble from the PlayStation 3 controller was for the consumer’s benefit.

Hirai told games website Kikizo in a recently posted Tokyo Game Show video interview, “The issue when we're talking about trying to have motion sensing as well as a vibration feature, is trying to isolate the vibration feature from the motion sensors. Is it technically feasible? Absolutely.”

However, Hirai said that a tilt-control-enabled controller coupled with rumble technology would be too pricey for many customers.

He continued, “But the other problem, or the balancing act that you need to do, is to be able to present the controller to the consumer at an affordable price. We have one controller in the box, but many consumers will want to go out and get an extra controller. And if we have to come up with technology - which you can technically do - to isolate the vibration from the sensing, if that means that the controllers are going to be so expensive, then we're doing the consumer a huge disservice by coming up with a controller that is not very affordable.

“So it's a balancing act that we need to do. And we felt that ultimately, the vibration feature, which is a feedback feature, as compared to the motion sensing which is an input functionality, when you compare the two, we decided that the input device or methodology is a lot more important that feedback, and that has been a strategic decision that we've made.”

Sony revealed today that the PS3 controller, now dubbed “Sixaxis,” would cost the equivalent of $42 in Japan.

Sony announced at E3 2006 the Sixaxis would be missing rumble—a feature that Sony helped make standard with the DualShock controller line.

Skeptics have insisted that the lack of force feedback has more to do with the legal struggles between force feedback tech licensor Immersion and Sony than any technical or cost issues. Immersion told Next-Gen earlier this year that rumble could be implemented in Sony’s controller rather cheaply and easily.

Immersion has been campaigning for Sony to adopt the firm’s next generation TouchSense technology through surveys backing up the importance of rumble, as well as interviews and meetings with press.

Immersion CEO Vic Viegas was unavailble for comment today.

Check out the multi-topic Hirai interview at Kikizo.