Sony has revealed the PS5 controller. Officially known as DualSense, it sports a host of new features include USB Type-C port for charging, haptic feedback, and a microphone array to name a few.
“Based on our discussions with developers, we concluded that the sense of touch within gameplay, much like audio, hasn’t been a big focus for many games,” reads a post on the official PlayStation blog by Hideaki Nishino, Senior Vice President, Platform Planning and Management at Sony. “We had a great opportunity with PS5 to innovate by offering game creators the ability to explore how they can heighten that feeling of immersion through our new controller.”
Here’s a list of all the features of the DualSense controller that Nishino outlined in his post.
PS5 DualSense controller features
- Haptic feedback, which adds a variety of powerful sensations such as the slow grittiness of driving a car through mud.
- Adaptive triggers have been added to the L2 and R2 buttons of DualSense so to truly feel the tension of actions, like when drawing a bow to shoot an arrow.
- Sony also changed the angle of the hand triggers and made some subtle updates to the grip.
- Nishino also claims that it was important to “maintain a strong battery life for DualSense’s rechargeable battery, and to lessen the weight of the controller as much as possible as new features were added” hopefully this means less wear and tear on the DualSense’s battery overtime as this tended to be an issue with the DualShock 4.
- The Share button has been removed. In its place is the Create button. Details of its functionality will be revealed closer to PS5 launch.
- There’s a built-in microphone array, which will enable players to easily chat with friends without a headset – ideal for jumping into a quick conversation. If you are planning to chat for a longer period, Nishino states “it’s good to have that headset handy.”
- Two-tone white and black colour scheme.
- Light bar incorporated on the sides of the touch pad.
- USB Type-C charging: while not technically revealed by the post, images that accompany it confirm this.
It’ll be interesting to see if the DualSense and the PS5 play nice with wireless audio options that have become more mainstream in recent years like Apple’s AirPods. That said, it’s heartening to see Sony take a more futuristic approach to designing for the PS5 if the DualSense is any indication.
Previously Sony revealed that the PS5 release date is slated for Holiday 2020 or Winter 2020 as it is also called. No surprise since Sony has traditionally targeted a November release date with the PS3 and PS4. Safe to say the PS5 will follow suit.
In addition to announcing its official name and release date, PS5 architect Mark Cerny detailed what we can expect in way of specifications in conversation with Wired.
PS5 specifications include an optical drive that doubles as a 4K Blu-ray player and PS5 games will be on 100GB Blu-ray discs. Game installs will be mandatory given the speed differences between the included solid state drive and the optical drive.
In a separate reveal with Famitsu, Sony went into even more detail on what to expect.
PS5 specifications
- Custom SSD for ultra fast access
- CPU: x86-64-AMD Ryzen “Zen2”, 8 cores/16 threads
- GPU: AMD Radeon RDNA (Radeon DNA) -based graphics engine
- 8K Resolution
- PS4 backwards compatibility and PS VR support
