It’s been a difficult year for for Sony, the formerly dominating company being hammered on all sides by bad press, disappointing sales and stiff competition from Nintendo and Microsoft.

In his TGS keynote speech, Sony President Kaz Hirai largely abandoned lucid dreams for the kind rhetoric employed by losing NFL coaches – It’s time to get back to basics. Sony has decided that it’s now all about games and gamers, and to prove that they were serious, their first move was to finally unveil the Dual Shock 3 for long-suffering PS3 owners.

“We have received many opinions from our users, and one of the largest voices we heard is that they wanted the addition of vibration to the Sixaxis,” Hirai said, citing 2008 as the return of vibration for North American and European players.

Sony wasted no time getting the DS3 into the hands of players, with several games on the show floor utilizing the new controller, including the all-important Metal Gear Solid 4. There isn’t much to say about the controller itself save that it feels like a slightly heavier Sixaxis, a welcome improvement since the original Sixaxis felt far too light in my hands. Outside of that, it’s basically the same controller you’ve been using since roughly 1998, but it’s great to have what should have been there in the first place.

Other than the expected DS3 announcement, there was relatively little in the way of new information. The demo reel was largely underwhelming, mostly featuring games that have been around for months. New Home details were also lacking, with Kaz’s only comment being that he expected it to be a A