A new patent filed to a Japanese patent office revealed some possible minor details about the next iteration of Sony’s DualShock controller, to be launched alongside the PlayStation 5 in the 2020 holiday season.
The new controller, which will be presumably called the DualShock 5, looks quite similar to the DualShock 4, with a few minor differences. The patent shows the controller using a USB-C connection for charging, alongside what appears to be a new microphone at the bottom of the front panel.
However, most importantly, the new DS5 patent is also missing the light bar from the DS4 controller. While perhaps not the most important feature for standard PlayStation games, some PSVR games like Astro Bot: Rescue Mission and Firewall Zero Hour, among others, use the light bar to track the gamepad itself. While this is just a patent and the final product could change, it will be interesting to see what solution is used to make these games backwards compatible if the final controller model is missing the light bar from the front.
The new patent also features slightly larger triggers when compared to the DualShock 4. Last month, we learned that these would be “adaptive” triggers and increased and improved haptic feedback. A hands-on from Wired noted that the adaptive triggers could “make shooting a bow and arrow feel like the real thing … or make a machine gun feel far different from a shotgun.”
It will certainly be interesting to see how any future or existing PlayStation VR games make use of the adaptive triggers and increased haptic capability. We already know that the PS5 will support PlayStation VR , however it’s unlikely that the next generation of PSVR launches alongside the PlayStation 5 in 2020. That being said, some other patents might have hinted at the future of PSVR hardware already.
