Wireless Game Controllers Date to 1982, Before the WaveBird and Sixaxis
The Cynex Game Mate 2, an RF-based Atari 2600 pad released around 1982, was the first wireless console controller; Nintendo's 2002 WaveBird made the technology mainstream, and Sony did not ship its own until the PS3-era Sixaxis in 2006.
Unlike the Acclaim Remote Controller released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1989, which had to be pointed directly at the console for its signal to register, the Game Mate 2 did not need to be aimed at a receiver, and it was reportedly capable of working at a range of up to 20 feet. The advantages came with tradeoffs. The pad was essentially a standard Atari 2600 controller sitting on a heavy base, making it weighty and clunky, and it drained its required 9V battery quickly. About a year after the peripheral launched, Atari took over distribution and rebranded it the CX42 Remote Control Wireless Joystick.
Wireless pads were tried in various iterations over the following decades, but according to the same account they were only perfected within the last few console generations, which is why players who grew up in the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube era often picture a different gamepad when they think of early wireless controllers.
The first mainstream wireless controller arrived in 2002 with Nintendo's WaveBird for the GameCube. Engadget describes it as the first mainstream wireless pad that was not weighed down by compromises. It used 2.4GHz radio frequency technology, a first for a controller, with a range of at least about 20 feet, and shipped with a chunky receiver that plugged into the console; players matched a channel using sliders on both the pad and the receiver. To maximize battery life the WaveBird omitted rumble support, which allowed it to run for up to 100 hours on a pair of AA batteries. The freedom it gave players to lean back or move around a room, rather than perching within a few feet of the console, also made multiplayer sessions easier, since everyone did not have to crowd onto the same couch. The article credits the WaveBird with paving the way for the wireless controllers Sony, Microsoft and others have released since.
Sony's first wireless peripheral came later than some players assume, not until the PlayStation 3 era. The Sixaxis, the initial controller model for the PS3, debuted in 2006 and dropped rumble in favor of early motion controls that Engadget characterizes as half-baked and never fully realized. Phil Harrison, then president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, said not long after the debut that Sony had left rumble out of the Sixaxis not because of a lawsuit over patent rights but because it was a "last-generation feature" — a statement the article calls bold. Resistance: Fall of Man, a PS3 launch title, was among the first games to support the Sixaxis.