The PS5 DualSense controller reveals a lot about the PS5 itself

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, Sony at least appears on track to release PlayStation 5 in 2020. While competitor Microsoft has been considerably more transparent when it comes to its own next-gen hardware, detailing its dedication to backwards compatibility, the unusual design, and even the full specs of the Xbox Series X, Sony has kept its cards much closer to its chest.

Details are finally beginning to emerge, though, starting with the main specs last month, and now the reveal of the PlayStation 5 Controller, known as the DualSense.

Sony showed off the new hardware last night in a blog post from senior vice president of platform planning and management Hideaki Nishino, along with detailing some of its features. While the DualSense is, aesthetically at least, the most radical departure from the standard PlayStation joypad design since the introduction of the DualShock Controller in the PS1 days, the PS5 controller also tells us five important things about the PlayStation 5 itself.

There’s (probably) no camera

PlayStations have had camera peripherals since the PS2’s EyeToy, each generation evolving the technology to better attempt to integrate real-world motion tracking into games. With the PS3 and PS4, the cameras largely tracked movement via light sensing. This is why the PlayStation Move wands, PS4 controller and even PlayStation VR headsets have front-facing lights glaring towards the TV.

The PS5 controller still has the light bar of the PS4 pad, but it is massively changed in position and function. It now sits under the touch pad – more on that in a moment – and seems to serve as more of a backlight. There’s no indication it will serve as anything more than a visual flourish, the handheld equivalent of an Ambilight TV perhaps. The only mention it even gets in Sony’s reveal is that “we changed the position of the light bar that will give it an extra pop”.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The sort of mixed reality games that use camera functions are rarely more than a curiosity, and even Microsoft has given up on Kinect – once the industry’s biggest example of camera gaming. If Sony do release a camera-based peripheral for PS5, expect it to have very different utility than past models have.

PSVR 2 will work very differently

Related to the above, if the PS5 generation sees a successor to PlayStation VR headset arrive, it will function very differently to the existing hardware. If no light bar on the controller means no camera, then any updated VR headset from Sony would have to use alternative technology to interact with the base PS5.

Of course, that’s if it works with PS5 at all. The Oculus Quest has shown virtual reality has entered the cordless era, and that a standalone unit can deliver a satisfying and immersive experience in its own right. The Quest also co-opts the major benefit of the current-gen PSVR – that developers know exactly what the hardware they’re creating software for is capable of (unlike, for instance, PC-based VR, where individual systems will differ).

A standalone PSVR 2 could improve upon this, offering cordless play on fixed-specification hardware, without any of the faff of setting it up with a camera peripheral or being tethered to a console.

Of course, if the hypothetical PSVR 2 can also connect to a PS5 controller – if not necessarily needing to pair with the main console – then it could have a one-up on Quest.

While we’d expect PSVR 2’s own main controllers to echo Oculus Touch – giving far greater tactile immersion in VR worlds and allowing users to grip and interact with objects in a more natural way than PS Move wands do – also being able to use a regular controller would allow for a greater variety of virtual gaming experiences.

Content creation will be king

The PS5 controller omits the Share button introduced on the PS4 pad. In its place though is the new Create button. Sony says this will offer “new ways for players to create epic gameplay content to share with the world, or just to enjoy for themselves”.

While Sony is holding back on further details of what Create offers until it gets closer to launch, it’s a safe assumption the PS5 will have more of an in-built content capture and editing suite than PS4. This is sensible – live-streaming on services such as Twitch, and Let’s Plays on the likes of YouTube have exploded over the past console generation, and is likely to continue to grow over the next.

The PS4 offers very simple screenshot and recent gameplay capture, along with integrated features to share to the likes of Twitter, but we’d expect to be able to store longer video clips, edit on console, and directly upload, along with a full suite of streaming features.

Indeed, the PS5 controller itself hints at this, with its integrated microphone, or rather “a built-in microphone array”. Sony says this “will enable players to easily chat with friends without a headset” but will also likely provide an instant, if basic, way for players to narrate their streams without having to splash out on a pricier headset (although Sony also says “if you are planning to chat for a longer period, it’s good to have that headset handy”).

Bigger is... better?

While the revised controller for Xbox Series X is getting smaller, Sony seems to be taking the opposite approach with PS5, with the new pad appearing slightly larger and bulkier than the PS4’s.

Although the button placement and layout seems almost the same, the actual curvature of the pad makes it look as though it will be, overall, bigger. The circumference of the grip prongs is certainly thicker than PS4, and may be slightly longer as well – although in lieu of official comparison pics or hands on time, it’s hard to gauge.

The added heft is being put to good use though – Nishino says “our design team worked closely with our hardware engineers to place the triggers and actuators”, and then designed the shell of the PS5 controller around them. This allows for features such as adaptive triggers – “so you can truly feel the tension of your actions, like when drawing a bow to shoot an arrow” – and improved haptic feedback and rumble.

Enhanced haptics have been a delight on the Nintendo Switch, with its HD Rumble being precise enough to create the sensation of individual ball bearings rolling around on 1-2-Switch, and could prove similarly immersive on PS5 games.

The PS5 controller also appears to house a speaker, like the PS4 controller. With Sony heavily pushing its Tempest 3D AudioTech on PS5, and the PS4 pad already able to pump out audio for some interesting tricks – in-game comms coming through the pad, for an appropriately tinny effect, for instance – expect this to be enhanced for PS5. As with most features like these, though, it will be down to developers actually making use of the rumble or speaker functions for players to see how well the technology can improve games.

USB-C for fast charging

The charging port at the front of the PS5 controller is now USB-C. This follows the evolution of connectors for PlayStation controllers – PS3 used Mini-USB, PS4 jumped to Micro-USB, and now PS5 is adopting the newer, faster standard.

This is more than just keeping up with the times, though – if the PS5 pad supports fast-charging power delivery, that would mean it could recharge more quickly, meaning fewer interruptions to gaming sessions. With USB-C being the new international tech standard – something Apple is trying to fight, favouring its own, discordant Lightning connectors – it will also reduce cable clutter for users, as one cord will be compatible with multiple devices.

Bonus: the PS5 will most likely be white

Sony has never released a console where the controllers do not match the base unit. When the PS1 was grey, so were the controllers. When that original console was revamped into the smaller, white PSOne, so too were its pads given a visual makeover.

The black PS2, PS3, and PS4 all launched with matching pads. With the PS5 controller opting for a two-tone black-white approach, it seems a reasonable guess that the main console will, too.

This isn’t unprecedented – the PS4 itself was customisable, with varying faceplates allowing users to create their own colour variants, while officially released repaints such as the Glacier White model or the Metal Gear Solid V custom version showed how visually pleasing a non-black PlayStation can be.

Leaked pictures of the PS5 dev kit show it is also a mix of grey and black, and while the retail units will likely look nothing like its curious V shape, the PS5 controller reveal hints the colour split will be refined and retained.

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This article was originally published by WIRED UK