two employees of Atari Games have held a patent on vibrating game controller technology since March 1991. Another theory for the vibration feedback being dropped was that Sony simply wanted to keep the price of the controller down in order to maximize user adoption.

It was released in the United States on 27 August 1997, and in Europe in September 1997 with little promotion. A few months later, the first DualShock controller was released in Japan on 20 November 1997.