First look at the new PS5… controller.

Let’s be honest: the PS5 is not gonna hit its holiday 2020 release window at this point. We’re losing entire months here, folks. But you can see the new controller:

While we still don’t know what the PlayStation 5 console will look like (or whether it will really still hit its “holiday 2020” release window), we at least know about its controller. The PS5’s gamepad, dubbed the DualSense, largely resembles previous DualShock models, but it appears to have just enough changes under the hood to merit a mostly new name.

Tuesday’s surprise announcement comes courtesy of the official PlayStation Blog. The biggest technical difference comes in the form of a wholly updated “haptic feedback” suite, which we understand compares favorably to Nintendo’s “HD rumble” feature in its Switch Joy-Con controllers. Sony senior VP Hideaki Nishino doesn’t go into fine detail about how the DualSense’s rumbling will differ from the DualShock 4 line, but finer-tuned haptic feedback can offer a greater range of rumble sensitivity and placement than most gamepads offer, at least when done right. “Stereo” rumbling feedback that carefully rumbles from one side to the other could be possible with such a system, but Sony didn’t clarify.

I’m not in love with the new controller, but I don’t play my PS4 enough as it is and I’m not getting a PS5. So what do I know? I’m not really sure about rumble, either. In my day we watched the screen shake whenever things got banged around! And we liked it that way! Get off my lawn, cloud!

Moe Lane

PS: Gimme a break. It was this, or the story about how broadband is doing fine in the USA right now. And that story approaches Things That We Don’t Talk About Here territory.