Daniel Rotar

May 15, 2020

PS5 (2020) DualSense Controller - This Will Change Everything!

Daniel Rotar

May 15, 2020

Sony has introduced their brand new PlayStation 5 Controller. However, it’s not actually called the DualShock 5, like we all expected, but instead it is called… the DualSense.

We got hundreds of requests to make a video covering it. So, here are not just my thoughts on the PS5 controller, but also how it compares against all the previous Controllers that Sony has ever released. Without any further ado, here is the history of the PlayStation Controller.

PlayStation 1 Controller

Originally released back in 1994, the Playstation 1 Controller was the very first Gamepad that Sony ever released and they bundled this with the original PlayStation.

Something about this just doesn’t look right.

It was based on the Nintendo Super NES Controller’s design, featuring four Directional Buttons as well as four Action Buttons, but instead of Sony using letters for their Action Buttons, they decided to use shapes. The ‘X’ would represent a ‘Yes’, the ‘O’ would represent a ‘No’, The ‘Square’ would represent a sheet of paper and was originally designed for being the Info Button in games, and the ‘Triangle’ represented the Point of View (or Dialogue) Button. However, unlike Nintendo’s Super NES Controller, Sony decided to add a second pair of Shoulder Buttons (L1, L2, R1 & R2). Fun fact, the US variant of the PS1 Controller was 10% larger to account for the larger hands that the average American has, compared to the average Japanese person.

Dual Analog Controller

Now, you might have noticed that something was missing from the original PS1 Controller, those were the Joysticks. Well, they were actually only added in 1997, three years later, when Sony introduced the new Dual Analog Controller. This was, for a most part, just a PS1 Controller with Dual Joysticks added to it for “more refined controls in games”, according to Sony. The Shoulder Buttons were now larger, especially the R2 & L2 Buttons. More importantly, Sony also added an Analog Button, which was used to switch between different modes.

There were three modes that this Controller had. There was Digital Mode, which disabled the Joysticks, Analog Mode, which enabled the Joysticks, and then finally we had the Analog Joystick Mode, which emulated Sony’s separate Analog ‘Flight-Stick’ accessory. The Dual Analog Controller was indeed a pretty big upgrade and really the first ever upgrade we got in a Sony Controller.

DualShock

In November of the same year, Sony released another Controller, which they called DualShock. The main change from the Dual Analog controller was the fact that Sony added Vibration Feedback in order to immerse you more into the game.

Now, each game had to support Vibration Feedback, things such as punching a character, or doing an action in a game like opening a door, would trigger this vibration. Nintendo already had this with the N64’s Rumble Pack, but Sony decided to step it up a notch by adding a Vibration Motor in each of the Hand-Grips, rather than just having one main Vibration Motor.

Not only that, but these two Motors didn’t require a separate Battery to work, like Nintendo’s Rumble Pack did. Instead, they just worked inside the Controller and they were powered by the Controllers cable. So, that was pretty big, games started implementing Vibration Support heavily and we all know how important this is today. The other change that the DualShock brought to the table was even bigger Shoulder Buttons, compared to the Dual Analog.

DualShock 2

Next up, we have the DualShock 2. Originally introduced in 2000, the DualShock 2 was launched alongside the PlayStation 2.

Pressure Sensitive Buttons opened the door for developers to experiment with games even further.

The main change was that the entire Controller was now black, as opposed to the grey look that we’ve had since the original PS1 Controller. Aside from this, some users reported that the Vibration Motor felt stronger in the DualShock 2, although this was never confirmed. But what we did indeed get, were Pressure Sensitive Buttons.

Essentially, aside from the Joysticks and the Start, Select, Analog, L3 and R3, the rest of the buttons were all pressure sensitive. Meaning that rather than just registering a value of ‘1’ when pressed, it would register anything between ‘0’ and ‘1’ from the moment you rested your finger on it. This was extremely useful in Racing games, where you could accelerate just a tiny bit by only lightly pressing the Shoulder Button.

Sixaxis Controller

In 2006, with the introduction of the PlayStation 3, Sony launched the DualShock 3. Actually, just kidding, it was the Sixaxis Controller that came first.

This was the first PlayStation Controller that was completely wireless.

Design wise, it looked almost identical to the PS2 Controller, which was released six years prior. But, the biggest change here was that it was completely wireless. You still had a cable that you would use for charging and you could keep it connected if you wanted to do so, but the Controller itself could now be used without a cable at all. It would work just as well as before.

On top of this, Sony added 6-axis Motion-Sensing Technology, hence the name of their Sixaxis Controller. This meant that the Controller could feel Rotation and Translation across the X, Y & Z axis, allowing you to, for example, control a Car by just using the Controller as steering wheel, or control a Plane by using the controller like a Yoke. It was pretty cool!

Unfortunately, the Sixaxis functionality didn’t end up being used as much as Sony had hoped. Even to this day, 14 years later, there are very few games that do make full use of it. Also, fun-fact, Sixaxis was a palindrome, meaning that if you reverse the word, it would still spell Sixaxis. Also, Sony removed the famous Vibration Motors entirely from the Sixaxis Controller, due to a patent dispute that Sony was having.

Aside from this, the Analog button was replaced by a ‘PlayStation’ Button, which would just take you Home. The Sixaxis also included finer Shoulder Button precision, compared to the DualShock 2 Controller.

DualShock 3

Less than a year after the new Sixaxis Controller was launched, Sony had managed to settle the patent battle against Immersion (who sued them) and because of this, they could use Vibration Feedback once more.

So, Sony released the DualShock 3, which was really just a Sixaxis Controller with the added Vibration Feedback. Aside from that, it was pretty much identical to the Sixaxis. Sony did end up releasing new colours for the DualShock 3 Controller, including White, which looked absolutely stunning. This the very first time that Sony would release multiple colour variants of their Controllers.

DualShock 4

Then, in 2013, when Sony launched the PS4, they also launched the DualShock 4. Unlike all of the previous Controllers, which all looked pretty much identical, the DualShock 4 was actually the first major change for a PlayStation Controller.

The Handles were now more rounded, longer and overall, the entire Controller was much more comfortable to hold, compared to any of the previous ones. The Joysticks were now Concave, as opposed to Convex, like the previous ones were. Personally, I did find them way more comfortable compared to the DualShock 3 Controller for example.

But, as well as this, the DualShock 4 also had some other gigantic changes. It removed the Start & Select Buttons and added a massive Touchpad instead, which could recognise multiple fingers at the same time. This was a capacitive, rather than a resistive, touch surface. It was pressable as well, so it acted as an extra Button.

Unfortunately, just like the Sixaxis Motion-Sensing technology, the Touchpad didn’t really get used by games at all, aside from some exclusive games such as ‘Little Big Planet’ and ‘Astrobot VR’. Most games use it as a Button for the Map or the Highscore, acting in the same way as the Tab Key on PCs.

Compared to previous generations, this was a huge design leap.

The other big change was that the back of the Controller had a big LED Strip. The main purpose of this was that the PlayStation 4 Camera could track its movement, you could use it in games this way. Following the PlayStationVR’s release, the light was also used by the PlayStation 4’s Camera to track the moment of the Controller, in VR. Aside from this, the light would also change its colour based on certain events in a game. For example, if your Health would run low, the light would turn red, but if you were at Full Health, the light would be green.

The PS4 controller, also added a Speaker for sound effects. It also added a proprietary Connector for connecting things such as a Keyboard Attachment or the new Back Button Attachment. It also added a 3.5mm Headphone Jack, which allowed you to connect any set of Headphones to it, you would hear the audio from the games directly from your Controller with no noticeable lag at all. That was incredible and definitely my favourite feature ever, in any Controller. We also got a new Options Button for bringing up the Options Menu in games, as well as a new Share Button for taking screenshots and video recordings of your Gameplay. We also got a microUSB Port, a change from the miniUSB Port that we had on the DualShock 3 Controller.

Sony also expanded on the success that the coloured versions of the DualShock 3 received by releasing even more colour options for the PS4 Controller. We also saw limited editions of the PS4 that also came bundled with a limited edition Controller. All of these improvements made the PS4 Controller a massive technological leap, compared to its predecessors.

DualShock 4 Pro

The latest version that we can currently get our hands on. This was a small tweak to the existing design.

When Sony launched the PS4 Pro in 2016, they also released an updated version of the DualShock 4. It was still called the DualShock 4, but this was the PS4 Pro version of it. This now reflected the Light-Bar onto the Touchpad as well, so that you could also see it more easily. It also included the ability to use it via a wired USB connection, with even lower Latency than when connected wirelessly, and it also featured an improved Battery Life.

DualSense

Finally, the latest Controller that Sony has unveiled, is the Playstation 5 Controller. Interestingly enough, rather than this being called the DualShock 5, it is called the DualSense.

Design wise, just like the DualShock 4, the DualSense embraces a completely fresh design style. This time, coming in a dual-tone colour scheme. The one that Sony has showed us came in White, with Black Accents, but we do expect Sony to launch even more colour options. There will very likely be a Black Controller with White Accents as well as a few more colour variants as well.

Aside from the colour scheme, the shape of the Controller is now very different as well. It resembles the Xbox One Controller much more than ever before. It is bigger, heavier and according to Sony, it feels more premium than ever before. We still have the same Buttons as before, but all those Buttons have a glass enclosure, which again is similar to how they look on the Xbox. So, gone are the coloured Action Buttons that we’ve seen for so many years now.

The ‘Options’ and ‘Share’ Buttons are still there. The ‘Share’ has been renamed into the ‘Create’ Button but it still acts the same way. They have also been rotated slightly to make room for the larger Touchpad. Which still has the built-in LED light, but it now surrounds the Touchpad rather than being underneath it.

Something about the DualSense looks a little familiar.

In case you’re wondering about that back LED light, that now seems to be gone entirely, which means that the PSVR 2 will very likely use a very different tracking technology. We’ve seen multiple patents on this before, where Sony would be using a laser-based tracking system for the PSVR 2. But anyway, that’s not said to be released until at least 2021.

Another change that the DualSense comes with is USB C Port, a change from the microUSB Connector, meaning that now you can use a Smartphone charger, a Laptop charger or pretty much anything, to charge the PS5 Controller. Battery Life has been improved significantly, according to Sony. They’ve also added on-board Microphones, meaning that you can now chat without having a Microphone plugged in. Of course, the 3.5mm Headphone Jack is still there, in case you do want to add some Headphones.

Now, let’s talk about the big changes here, the ones that will affect your Gameplay. The first ones are the brand new ‘Adaptive Pressure Sensitive’ L2 & R2 Triggers. Just like pulling a Bow-String or an actual Gun Trigger, they will be harder to push, the further you push down. This does sound very similar to what Microsoft added in their Xbox One Controller.

The biggest change, and the reason why this is called DualSense, is that it features a full Haptic Engine all throughout the Controller. Ok, but what is this exactly? You know how on modern Smartphones, such as the iPhone 11, the Pixel 4, the Samsung Galaxy S20’s, the OnePlus 8 and many others, we have an improved Vibration Motor that gives you a tactile response, whenever you press a Menu or Action Button? It essentially gives you the impression that you pressed a physical Button. Well, the PS5’s Haptic Feedback would be similar, just on Steroids. According to Sony, the Haptic Feedback is so good that you’ll be able to feel the textures on different roads. You’ll be able to feel mud, asphalt, ice and more, or even feel how different Guns shoot. From what I’ve heard, this is an absolute game changer.

So, there you go. This is how far we’ve come from the original PS1 Controller and I’m personally really looking forward to trying the PS5 Controller out!

ZONEofTECH

December 4, 2019

Leaks & Rumors

PS5 - MAJOR Leaks Update - Price, Graphics and more!

ZONEofTECH

December 4, 2019

Leaks & Rumors

Over the past couple of months we have done a couple of videos and articles on the upcoming PS5 from Sony.

A couple of weeks ago we did a video and article surrounding the PS5 Controller and everything we knew about it, as there had been quite a few leaks regarding it. Then a couple of weeks before that we did a massive video and article covering an exclusive picture that we received of the PS5 developers kit. This was a never seen before image and it basically showing the PS5 that we had seen in previous patents, and we actually got picked up by quite a few tech website thanks to this.

But what will we be covering in this video and article? Well, we have a ton of major updates to cover, from insane spec updates, to some more controller leaks and a direct comparison between the PS5 and Xbox 2. So get those snacks ready and here’s the latest updates on the PS5!

SPECS

The PS5 will have some truly next generation graphics, 4K at up to 120fps and even 8K at 30fps, these have both been officially confirmed by Sony so they’re not even leaks anymore.

But one of the main upgrades to the PS5, and this is something that some of you might be familiar with would be the HDD. You see, rather than the PS5 using a traditional HDD, like we’ve had in pretty much all modern consoles, both the PS5 and the Xbox 2 will be using SSD’s (Solid State Drives). This is very similar to what you find in modern laptops as SSD’s are up to 10 times faster than HDD’s, offering speeds of around 500MB/s from the standard 50MB/s that a HDD offers.

NVMe or PCIe flash storages are usually found soldered to the motherboard as seen in the image above

However, the PS5 will be using something even more powerful than a SATA based SSD. Sony did say that they’ve developed a custom storage option that would offer speeds of up to 19 times higher of what the HDD inside the PS4 could achieve. So 19 times 50 is 950MB/s which is pretty much in the territory of NVMe and PCIe based Flash Storage. These are flash modules that are soldered onto the motherboard, that offer much much higher speeds that what a SATA based SSD would be able to offer, which is always limited to between 500 and 550MB/s. Now if you do get a high end laptop that’s aimed at creatives today, such as a Dell XPS or the MacBook Pro, these have read and write speeds of well over 2GB/s. So while the PS5 won’t have speeds as high as a high end laptop’s storage has, it will still be much faster than the HDD inside the PS4 was.

Also, Sony did showcase a demo of Spiderman running on the PS5, and the entire game loaded in just 0.8 seconds! The PS4 Pro was still extremely fast and it only took just over 8 seconds to load the game, but the PS5 took 10 times less than that, and also keep in mind that this game was not optimised fully and not even developed with the PS5 in mind.

Ok, so this is a standard mid-range laptop NVMe flash module that you can find in any laptop, right? Well, not really. You see, Mark Cerny, the lead system architect for both the PS4 and the PS5, did say that the RAW bandwidth of the PS5’s SSD is higher than of any other SSD’s on the market right now. But what benefits would an SSD bring to the PS5, other than just loading the games really fast? Well, in the Spider-Man demo for example, Sony also showed us the maximum speed that Spidey can swing on webs at, and on the PS4 Pro, once you hit a certain speed the system cannot stream the data fast enough from the HDD and therefore the game freezes and Spidey cannot swing any faster. Then with the PS5, they stared off at the same speeds as before, but everything was much smoother. Then when the speeds are increased, everything is remains perfectly fluid and Spidey can swing insanely fast! Imagine how amazing racing games will be on the PS5 thanks to this new storage. This is huge!

So you see, it’s not just that games will load faster, it’s also the experience inside of a game that would be dramatically improved. And we’ve actually had a few big leaks in terms of the PS5’s SSD recently.

An Infographic from Samsung’s event showing system boot and game launch speeds (Source: TechTastic)

According to TechTastic, Samsung had a presentation in Tokyo where they showcased their upcoming SSD for game consoles in 2020, ‘SSD era in games console 2020’, that’s what it was called. And what they showed was how improved the system boot and the game load times were. For example, with the standard HDD it would take a game console around 49 seconds to boot, and with a standard SSD it would take them around 29 seconds. However, their upcoming Optimised NVMe modules can boot the system in less than half of that, around 10 seconds. Then when it comes to game launch speeds a HDD took 38 seconds to load compared to 13 seconds with an SSD and then less than 6 seconds with the new Optimized NVMe drives. Monster Hunter was the game that these tests were being done with, just so you know.

And Mark Cerny did actually say in his interview with the Wired that the PS5 will indeed come with optimised flash storage, rather than standard modules that laptops use. So it makes a lot of sense for Sony to use Samsung’s brand new “Optimised NVMe” modules in the PS5, which means that this will be a proprietary module, specifically designed for the PS5, rather than something that you would be able to find in stores. However, there is a pretty big issue here. You see, if all the games are optimised to work with Sony’s new flash module, it won’t be cheap to manufacture by any means. I mean if you look at NVMe modules today, a 1TB Samsung made M.2 drive costs around 150-300 pounds in the UK, which is more than half of what the PS5 will cost.

PSErebus’s tweet regarding the release date and price of the PS5

Speaking of this, twitter leakster PSErebus who’s had a pretty good track record in the past when it comes the accuracy of his leaks posted that the PS5 will be launching on November the 20th 2020, at a price of $500 which is actually the exact same price that the Xbox One X costs. Considering how powerful the PS5 will be, even when compared to the Xbox One X, I would say that $500 is an outstanding price. It’s less than a mid-range smartphone, and this is a console that will last you for 5-7 years, compared to a smartphone that most people change every 2 years or so.

Ok, so going back to the SSD. I was saying that one issue is the high cost of the SSD itself as the PS5 is very likely to ship with a 1TB NVMe flash module. However games today have become massive and most people will need an external drive, which are supported on the PS4 and will most likely still be supported on the PS5. So the question here is, if you need more storage and you plug in an external HDD, wouldn’t this impact the games heavily, since that storage would be significantly slower than the internal storage? Keep in mind that all games will be made to take full advantage of the extremely fast internal storage.

Well, one solution to this is that Sony could indeed limit the use of external SSD’s only and drop HDD support entirely, but even those, only reach 500MB/s or so. Therefore you would need something like an external m.2 module in order to even reach speeds close to the internal module and those ones pretty expensive. However, I do have some good news here, there have been reports that Sony is planning on developing the flash module as a modular system, so that you can easily swap it out for a higher capacity modules, when you need to.

This means that Sony will very likely sell these modules alongside the PS5. They will be more expensive than what an entry level m.2 drive will cost, but they should be perfectly compatible with the PS5, and games will still make full use of those modules as well. So, if at some point in time you want to upgrade the storage to maybe 4TB you should be able to easily do that by buying one of these modules. Also, it’s very safe to assume that the PS5 will also let you connect these modules externally, so that you can also expand your internal storage.

Renders of PS5 Cartridge concept by LetsGoDigital

A brand new Sony patent uncovered by LetsGoDigital shows what looks to be a cartridge. Maybe the module 1st party SSD module that you would use to expand your PS5’s storage? Well that’s what it looked to be, and LetsGoDigital even made some renders of it, but unfortunately it turns out that its actually just a cartridge for a completely different Sony product a kids tablet/toy that you use to control some cars.

Anyway, the point is that this is completely unrelated to the PS5 unfortunately. However, like I said before, it is still very likely that Sony will indeed offer SSD modules themselves, that will extend your internal/external storage on the PS5.

Now, in case you’re worried about the storage or the price of these expansion modules, I do have some good news. Mark Cerny did say in his interview with Wired that the PS5 will support a new way of installing and playing games. You would now be able to select if you want just install the Campaign of a game, or just the Multiplayer and you can even delete parts of a game that you’ve already played and no longer wish to play. In Call of Duty Modern Warfare for example, you would be able to uninstall the Campaign right after you’ve finished it and only then install the multiplayer, which would save you around 50GB or so.

Also, Mark Cerny did say that because of how slow the HDD was on the PS4, some developers had to make copies of the game textures multiple times so that they can load them simultaneously, since it was faster to load them this way. However, this resulted in a lot of space being wasted.

So not only will the PS5 games occupy way less storage, but parts of the games will be able to be uninstalled as we wish, which means even more free space.

CONTROLLER

Now, something else that we’ve had recently in terms of the PS5 leaks, are some updates on the PS5 controller.

This is something that I’ve covered extensively in our last PS5 video and article. In that one I talked about some leaked PS5 development kit controller photos and showed the PS5 controller with the built-in display that replaced the touchpad. We also got the options and share buttons inverted, so they were horizontal rather than vertical. We also had microphones or dual speakers on each side of the screen and also a very weird shape that had the bottom portion of the controller indented which from the looks of it would feel very uncomfortable, but it might actually be the opposite, when holding this in person.

A design comparison between the new PS5 Controller patent (Left), the Nintendo Switch Controller (Middle) and Xbox controller (Right)

Then just last week, we had a new patent filing by Sony on what appears to be a new controller that looks very similar to the PS4 one. We have a shape that now matches the Xbox and Nintendo Switch Pro controller a bit more, which were known to be the most comfortable gaming controllers on the market, so that‘s great to see.

The TouchPad is quite a bit larger than the one we had on the PS4 controller. Also it doesn’t curve anymore but instead it’s now completely flat, which is interesting because you know what else is flat? Touchscreens. I mean yes, there are curved touchscreens and displays but those are very expensive to manufacture. So I believe that because of how this patent looks and because of the leaked PS5 controller dev kit images that we’ve seen before, the PS5 controller will indeed replace the touchpad with a full touchscreen display. And we would be able to use this in games and most importantly see the chat and friends menu. This would be great because if you want to type a message on the PS4, you either have to use the joystick, which will take you a year to type a single sentence, or you’ll have to use your smartphone which isn’t as convenient since you need to connect it to your PS4 first.

Aside from this we still seem to have 2 ports that both look to be 3.5mm headphone jacks, and we are getting a USB C port for charging, Mark Cerny did confirm that, we cannot really tell if that’s the black spot right below the headphone jack or if that’s on the back where it used to be on the PS4 controller.

The weird hole on the controller that, as of now, we are unsure what it is for

The speaker is in the exact same place, the options and share buttons are also in the same place and in the same orientation. So really, aside from the shape, USB C and the screen, the only thing that looks changed to me is that weird hole right below the PlayStation button.

When Mark Cerny had his October interview with Peter Rubin from the Wired, Mark did actually hand Peter a PS5 controller. He wasn’t allowed to share any photos or videos of it, but this is what Peter had to say: “Cerny hands me a prototype of the next-gen controller, an unlabelled matte-black doohickey that looks an awful lot like the PS4’s Dualshock 4. After all, there’s a little hole on it, and a recently published patent points to Sony developing a voice-driven AI assistant for the PlayStation.”

If you want to look at the patent that Peter was referring to you can see it here, but from the sounds of it, the one that we’ve seen in the patent sounds like exactly the controller that Peter was given by Cerny. And that mysterious hole would then indeed be for the microphone which would be used for Sony brand new AI assistant.

So there you have it, the latest updates on the PS5. What do you think so far? Are you going to buy one?

ZONEofTECH

November 9, 2019

Leaks & Rumors

PlayStation 5 (2020) - FULL Controller LEAKED!

ZONEofTECH

November 9, 2019

Leaks & Rumors

Our last PS5 video was quite a special one, because you see we got our hands on the world’s first actual photo of the PlayStation 5 dev kit! Our video actually got picked up by quite a lot of tech websites, which never really happened before, at least not to the same scale so thank you all for your support!

But now, get those snacks ready and here’s the video and article that I promised you, focused just on the PlayStation 5 controller!

If you’re a gamer then you’ll definitely enjoy this article. And if you’re not a gamer well, keep reading anyway because the PS5 will indeed be a truly revolutionary device, not just for playing the most graphically advanced games, but also for watching 4K and even 8K movies.

When playing a game there are three very important parts of every game, in my opinion at least.

1. The Story

2. How that story is being played?

3. What the story is being played with?

Now personally, I’ve always preferred a gaming controller to a mouse and keyboard. Yes a mouse is more accurate, but a controller is much more comfortable and you get motion controllers, vibrations and even touch input, all of which immerse you so much more in the game, than a regular mouse and keyboard can.

The 1st PS1 controller, the original DualShock was one of the most iconic controllers to ever be released. It had dual joysticks, symmetrical buttons which I’ve always preferred, and vibration feedback, which back in 1997 was a huge deal.

The DualShock 2 which was released with the PlayStation 2 back in 2000, wasn’t really that big of an upgrade. It had pretty much the same style design, just a bit slimmer, a bit lighter, and came in black but all the main buttons were actually pressure sensitive. So the more you pressed the triggers for example, the faster your car would start driving and things like that.

Then came with the DualShock 3 with the PlayStation 3. With this we got the first big change in a Sony controller. You see this was Sony’s first fully wireless controller, it featured 6-axis motion sensing which was basically a gyroscope that could sense the direction and the orientation that you held the controller at. With this you could play certain games that way and even use the controller itself as a racing wheel, really cool stuff! It also featured a miniUSB port for charging and connecting it to other devices, such as the PSP or even a full PC by using some 3rd party apps!

And then in 2013, when the PlayStation 4 was released, we got an even bigger update to Sony’s line of game controllers, the DualShock 4. Not only did the DualShock 4 feature the 1st big design change in a Sony controller, but it also came with a ton of major features.

The start and select buttons were replaced with Options and Share. We also got a built-in speaker for some sound effects that the controller would play for when let’s say, you were reloading a gun. We also got an actual touch-pad on the controller, which would not only be used in games but also in the web browser as a mouse and it was also it’s own pressable button. We got redesigned joysticks that were now concave rather than convex. It came with a massive light bar on the back for not only giving you a visual feedback of what was happening in your game, if the light went red for example, you would know that your health has reached a critical point, but that light was also used for 3D depth tracking for the PlayStation Camera and the PlayStation VR headset which was released later on. We got a microUSB port from the miniUSB that we had before, and we even got something that was by far my favourite feature, a 3.5mm headphone jack! Yes, you could now plug in any headphones that you wanted directly into the controller itself! How amazing was that?

So yes, the PS4 controller, the DualShock 4, was the biggest change ever that Sony had made. So now what do we know when it comes to the DualShock 5, the PS5’s controller?

Well, we’ve actually had a few leaked images that give us a glimpse at the PS5 controller.

This first one was posted by Ray Sekiro on Twitter and this one shows a very weird looking controller.

The leaked PS5 controller (Source: Ray Sekiro)

Probably the first two things that you’ve noticed are the weird indented shape on the bottom, as well as the integrated display panel. But there’s quite a few more things that do stand out. The directional arrow keys on the left have now been redesigned. They’re slimmer, a bit taller and the arrow symbols are now on the inside of the keys, rather than on the outside. The PlayStation square, circle, triangle and X buttons seem to be the same as before, maybe a bit more raised, but it’s quite hard to tell from this image. The Share and Options buttons are now horizontal, rather than vertical and it seems like we also have two instead of just one speaker grills on each side of the display. And I’m not sure how well you can see this but the L1 and R1 buttons seem to have been redesigned as well and they’re much larger now. It also appears that the 3.5mm headphone jack and the proprietary connector or at least a USB type C port seem to be located on the bottom of the controller, just like on the PS4 one.

Now let’s talk about the two elephants in the room. The Display and the Shape of this controller.

So when it comes to the display, the whole idea behind it is for it to be an upgrade to the touch panel that we had with the PS4 Controller. Personally I can definitely see this happening. That display would allow you to see certain elements of a game, such as the inventory or the in-game party or chat. I do think that that would be a very useful thing to have, since at the moment if you want to chat with your friends via text, you would connect your phone to the PlayStation, but that does take some time and typing using the joystick is just a nightmare. So something like this would speed up the typing process by a lot.

The only question is, what impact will this have on the battery life? Well it should have quite a significant one. Considering that the PS4 controller is pretty well known for a not so great battery life, I don’t think things are looking that great for the PS5 controller.

The Nintendo Switch Pro has the best battery life on a controller on the market

However, if you look at the Nintendo Switch Pro controller, that is by far the best controller on the market when it comes to battery life right on par with the Xbox One Elite 2 controller, both offering a staggering 40 hour battery life.

But even 10 hours would be enough, as long as Sony managed to add everything that they want in this controller, and I would say that that’s perfectly doable. Especially considering that the PS4 controller uses Bluetooth 2.1 and nowadays we have Bluetooth 5.0 which is significantly more power efficient. Add this to more efficient batteries and chips and I would say that 10 hours with that included display is doable.

Now when it comes to the shape, yes it does look to be extremely uncomfortable judging by how the bottom bit is lower than the top portion. I could be wrong, but I would need to hold it in my hand to see for myself how comfortable it really is.

However, something that you should keep in mind is that this is not the final version of the PS5 controller. No, this is very likely a DevKit controller that would work alongside the developers kit that I showed you guys exclusively in a previous video. So make sure you watch that one, in case you want to learn more about the actual PlayStation 5, as this is mostly about the controller itself.

So the final version will be more polished, with a thinner design, and possibly without that indented part towards the bottom.

Now, when I first saw that image, I did consider the fact that it might be a very well done render. However, I don’t think this is the case for two reasons.

The first one being that we make 3D renders here at ZONEofTECH as well, like the PS5 one that you’ve seen. That was very well done and it’s also an extremely difficult shape to do, so if the controller image is a render, it’s probably the best one that I’ve seen.

Secondly, there were actually multiple leaked photo of this controller, from many other sources and they all look the same. Twitter user Tidux posted an image that shows this PS5 controller, and we have another image that was posted on Reddit, that again shows the same controller from a different angle. The image has been taken down from Reddit but you can see it on hothardware.com here.

Now they could all be renders made by the same person that decided to share it with random people but I don’t think that’s the case. If we take a look at an actual photo of a real PlayStation 4 dev kit controller, you can see that even this one had that big, thick and chunky form factor, and we all know how much thinner and sleeker it got with the final unit. However, the main characteristic of the controller still remained. Things like the overall design from the front, the button layout, the touch bar and even the light bar. Even though it did look more squared off in the dev-kit model.

Now we have actually made our own PS5 controller 3D model. It’s a blend of the PS4 controller and the PS5 dev kit controller.

So we still have overall the same PS4 controller design, just with slightly longer handles. We do have the built-in display, the horizontal Options and Share Buttons, the light bar on the top which we’ve actually made bigger than on the PS4 one, for even easier tracking from a greater distance. We’ve implemented the dual speakers to the side of the display, and the 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom. We did actually removed Sony’s proprietary connector, in favour of just the USB type C port on the back and that’s pretty much it!

You can see how similar it looks to the PS4 controller, yet how it incorporates the brand new features, such as the display, the speakers, and also a very unique feature that I haven’t mentioned before.

So Sony has had another interview with The Wired, back in early October, where they not only confirmed the name of the PS5 which, surprise surprise is indeed PlayStation 5, but they also confirmed the release date, Holidays 2020 alongside some exclusive details about the PS5 controller.

Mark Cerny, the lead architect on both the PS4 had the PS5, had an interview with Peter Rubin of the Wired, and Mark actually handed Rubin a PS5 controller, which according to Peter, looked very similar to the PS4 controller. According to Mark, it would be a next-generation controller as well, a change as big as the PS4 controller was from the PS3 controller.

Apparently Sony will now have a voice assistant similar to Siri, Alexa or Cortana, built into the PS5, and the controller will also have a built-in microphone to pick up that audio.

The second change that was officially confirmed are adaptive triggers that can offer varying levels of resistance based on the weapon that you use. So you’ll be able to feel the tension increasing as you pull the arrow back in a bow and different weapons having different feels on the trigger, really cool stuff!

The new haptic engine will give the user real time feedback depending on the environment they are in, like driving on dirt in Gran Turismo Sport (Source: Sony)

And the third officially confirmed change would be a haptic engine. This would be similar to what modern smartphone use today but basically on steroids. You’ll be able to feel not just vibrations but also certain elements in a game. Peter was saying how he played a platformer game and he could actually feel things such as sand, mud, and ice on the thumbsticks. He could feel the haptic engine and the triggers offering a different type of resistance based on the environment that he was in, in the game. Peter was also shown a new version of Grand Turismo Sport running on the PS5 and he said he could fee the difference in terrain when he was driving on asphalt to when he came off the track and onto grass, sand, gravel.

If this is all true then this is incredible! I am really excited for that, although I believe the competitive gaming community would be a bit frustrated with having joysticks that constantly feel different based on what you touch and what you pick up. But this will definitely be something that the developer can enable or disable and tweak to their liking.

Also USB type C is confirmed for the next-gen PS5 controller, which was quite expected, and Mark Cerny also confirmed the existence of a larger battery. He also confirmed that the controller is indeed heavier than a PS4 controller but still lighter than the current Xbox Controller.

With all of this in mind I am very excited for the new PS5 and really excited to check out the new controller and see if all the rumours are true. Let me know in the comments what you guys are excited for with the PS5!