AT LAST, a look at the hardware.
Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment senior vice president Hideaki Nishino revealed the first look at the new PS5 controller on the Sony PlayStation blog. It got a new name, too: it's DualSense now, instead of DualShock.
The biggest noticeable change is the two-toned design — in this first look, a very striking white, then black accents on the triggers and thumbstick area. Previous base PlayStation controllers have always been one-color affairs.
Otherwise, the silhouette looks very much like a PS4 DualShock controller, “with a challenge of making the controller feel smaller than it really looks,” wrote Nishino. But Sony subtly changed the angle of the hand triggers and the grip. The light bar has also been moved to the sides of the touchpad for a more futurist look.
Features-wise, the big thing on the new PS5 controller is haptic feedback (which is presumably why they’re calling it “DualSense”.) This is more than just your traditional controller rumble. Instead, as Nishino wrote, it “adds a variety of powerful sensations you’ll feel when you play, such as the slow grittiness of driving a car through mud.”
He addes: “We also incorporated adaptive triggers into the L2 and R2 buttons of DualSense so you can truly feel the tension of your actions, like when drawing a bow to shoot an arrow.”
The ‘Share’ button has also been renamed as the ‘Create’ button, though additional details of that are still forthcoming. There’s also a built-in microphone array, so you can chat even without a headset.
Oh, and look at the charging port. That’s USB-C.
“Our goal with DualSense is to give gamers the feeling of being transported into the game world as soon as they open the box,” wrote Nishino.
Some netizens are even posting mock-ups of different colorways on Twitter.
Though this one wanted a return to the classic all-black.
Now all we need is a reveal of the console itself!
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