home > news > happening > 1Up.com and Sony Both Wrong: Neither Sixaxis nor Wiimote Win Emmy Award
GamesFirst! Online since 1995

View Image Gallery

1Up.com and Sony Both Wrong: Neither Sixaxis nor Wiimote Win Emmy Award
news
happening
posted by: Aaron Stanton
date posted: 03:39 PM Wed Jan 10th, 2007
last revision: 02:01 PM Wed Jan 10th, 2007


Unlimited Game Rentals Delivered - Free Trial


Click to read.Despite major gaming news sites like 1UP.com reporting recently that the Sony Sixaxis PS3 controller and the Nintendo Wii controller have both won Emmys, they have not. Instead, both Nintendo and Sony won awards for their past contributions to the gaming community, Nintendo for the Directional Pad and Sony for the Dual Shock Analog Controller.

The initial belief that Sony had won an award for the Sixaxis was started when Sony sent out an erroneous press release on January 8th, 2007 claiming that the Sixaxis had won a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award. A follow-up news post on 1UP.com January 9th, titled, \"Wiimote Also Wins Technology & Engineering Emmy\" reported that Nintendo had won an award for the Nintendo Wii\'s controller as well. This was based on the appearance of Nintendo\'s name on the official list of award winners for the same category. In truth, both companies won, but neither for the current generation of game consoles.

When Sony sent out the inaccurate press release claiming that the the Sixaxis was going to win a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award, it became big news. People were understandably upset that the Sixaxis was winning any sort of innovation award while the Wiimote floated in obscurity.

Then, Seamus Byrne over at Hydrapinion began doing a little digging and discovered that, no, in fact the press release had it wrong. Sony was actually receiving the award for the Dual Shock Analog Controller, not the Sixaxis. The Dual Shock changed how games were played by introducing a number of innovative features that influenced how controllers were designed for console generations that followed.

There, the news story should have ended. Sony should have received a slap for sending out an erroneous press release and otherwise tainting a legitimate honor. But the story didn\'t end there.

1UP.com has moved forward with another story, however brief, that\'s now receiving attention in the gaming community and is again incorrect, this time because of 1UP\'s erroneous assumptions, not Sony\'s. In a news post titled, \"Wiimote Also Wins Technology & Engineering Emmy\", 1UP reports that the Nintendo Wii also received an award in the same category as Sony, based on the list of official winners at the award website.

And so the story carries on. In fact, Nintendo did win in the same category, but not for the Wii. On Hydrapinion\'s website, he writes that the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences told him, \"[The Dual Shock] was nominated by our internal group and considered along with the Nintendo D-Pad both of which were considered Emmy worthy for the development of the generation of controllers that followed the classic joysticks.\"

In other words, if Nintendo did win an award in the same category as the Dual Shock, it\'s the Nintendo Directional Pad, not the Wiimote. Both Nintendo and Sony received awards, but both for past contributions that - beyond Sony\'s bungled press release - have little to do with the current generation of game systems.

Click images for larger version

Click for larger.