MANILA, Philippines – After what has been a slow trickle in details about Sony’s upcoming console, the PlayStation 5, the company made a big announcement online on Tuesday, April 7, US time, revealing its new controller. 

The new controller will be dropping the DualShock naming, which has been around since 1997 when the first DualShock controller was released for the original PlayStation. It was named for the way it vibrates, matching certain actions in the game. The new DualSense will be named as such to reflect the evolution in this vibrating mechanism with a more advanced haptic feedback system that will give players a more accurate “sense of touch within gameplay.” 

Sony reiterated the use of previously announced adaptive triggers as well which, as the company says, will, for instance, allow a player to feel the tension on the string of a bow when shooting an arrow. 

Here are other key changes from the DualShock 4:

• The angle of the hand triggers and the grip have been slightly adjusted
• Share button has been removed, to be replaced with a Create button
• A microphone array has been added, for chatting without a headset; the DualShock 4 had a small built-in speaker but no microphone. The speaker appears to have been retained in the middle of the touch pad and the joysticks. 
• Two-toned color scheme. This is the first time that the main controller for a PlayStation will be adopting a two-color scheme. 
• The light bar has been removed from the top of the controller, and moved at the sides of the touch pad. Formerly, players had an issue with the light bar on the DualShock 4 reflecting on their TV screen, becoming a distraction. 

“In all, we went through several concepts and hundreds of mockups over the last few years before we settled on this final design. DualSense has been tested by a wide range of gamers with a variety of hand sizes, in order for us to achieve the comfort level we wanted, with great ergonomics. 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 Hideaki Nishino, Sony Interactive Entertainment senior vice president for platform planning and management. 

In incorporating more developed touch sensations into the controller and the PlayStation 5’s new spatial audio technology called, “Tempest 3D AudioTech,” Nishino said that they moved into this direcation as they and many developers felt the “sense of touch within gameplay, much like audio, hasn’t been a big focus for many games.”

Sony’s designers also sought to make the “controller feel smaller than it really looks,” and lessen the weight and maintain a strong battery life while adding as much features as possible. It also said that it’s now starting to ship the new controller in its final design to developers so they can start implementing new controller-based features into their games.  

Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, had a message in the announcement post as well:

“DualSense marks a radical departure from our previous controller offerings and captures just how strongly we feel about making a generational leap with PS5. The new controller, along with the many innovative features in PS5, will be transformative for games – continuing our mission at PlayStation to push the boundaries of play, now and in the future.

“To the PlayStation community, I truly want to thank you for sharing this exciting journey with us as we head toward PS5’s launch in Holiday 2020. We look forward to sharing more information about PS5, including the console design, in the coming months.” – Rappler.com