One thing they didn't make quite clear here is that the Xbox controller is considerably less advanced than the PS5 controller.
The PS5 controller has "linear resonant actuators" (previously introduced in the Switch, and in the iPhone before that) which provide a much more fine-grained rumble feature than the older method which is still used in the XBox. The newer feature lets you feel e.g. that the character walks over sand, rubble or grass. The PS5 controller also has actual force-feedback triggers (which simulate e.g. a bow or a gun), while on the XBox there are only simple rumble motors. The XBox controller also still lacks a gyroscope (e.g. used for more precise aiming), which other controllers have for many years now. A really outdated piece of hardware, in contrast to the base console.
One of the things I like about the Xbox Pad when used with a PC is that when a wired headphone is plugged in to the controller, the pad appears as a new audio device and routes the audio to your headphones. I use the pads via the wireless dongle (Via virtualhere from my Shield), but may work via wired usb or bluetooth.
As much as I agree the PS5 controller is better technically, the xbox pad works better with a PC. Compatibility wise, not many games take advantage of the haptic feedback triggers.
The ps5 controller, just like the PS4 controller, are succumbed to the dreaded stick drifting issue. I play Call of Duty and this stick drifting issue has made me own more than 4-5 controllers for each generation. At this point I have a conspiracy theory that Sony intentionally not fixing this. My friends in the Xbox camp say they never experienced this issue.
What makes this situation even more frustrating is that analog sticks have been around for a long time now. I still have controllers from the PS2/GC/Xbox era that work just fine after all these years and countless hours of play, and have no drift whatsoever.
Even the earliest analog sticks like the N64 (Which used LEDs for tracking) didn't suffer from drift — although it did wear out considerably mechanically!
I just bit the bullet and replaced my Joycon's sticks with 3rd party hall-sensing ones, which have worked great so far.
Even more frustrating, its not even that difficult to fix. All they need to do is implement a renormalization routine.
If you find your controller is drifting, then the console just needs some menu where you put the stick to a bunch of reference locations, and then the stick maps outs its own response and renormalizes. "This is neutral." "This is upper-left as far as it goes." "This is..." ect... Maybe even with fine grain mapping adjust if the player really wants control over drifting behavior.
I also have had stick drift due to COD and in the menu you can doing something similar to this by controlling how much default stick is pushed.
You set high sensitivity and the cursor moves with hand off the controller in a certain direction. You adjust the counter-drift until the cursor doesn't move at all.
Yeah, the same problem exists on the Switch. The console manufacturers should have switched to more expensive Hall effect sticks, which are not affected by this problem. I think the XBox controller also doesn't have them, but maybe they use simply higher quality parts here.
I'm pretty sure all the manufacturers have this problem pretty much equally, at least on their "normal" controllers. Nintendo worse probably just due to the very constrained available size.
You see users of all the consoles anecdotally reporting drift problems. I haven't experienced personally any drift on my PS4 or PS5 controllers, nor an Xbox controller used for a PC. I did have it happen pretty significantly on a Switch Lite.
I also think there's probably an aspect of personal usage patterns: maybe if you're just going through sticks constantly, you apply more pressure, or just use them more, or have something like a dusty environment wearing them out faster.
Never experienced this on modern Xbox controllers, but I did get it significantly on N64. Seems like it should be fixed if they use hall sensors or encoders but I haven’t actually looked inside one.
Here's an interesting video I just watched of someone making a hardware mod for existing controllers using a rotary encoder hall effect position sensor.
It might be a coincidence, but I bought the DualSense Edge and while I think it's overpriced, the sticks seem much more precise. Does anyone know if the Edge is using hall effect sticks? At more than double the price of the regular controller, I'd hope they're using higher end sticks. That said, at least they can be replaced easily and relatively cheaply ($20) on the Edge.
This issues affects all analog sticks not using hall effect ones. You can easily find examples of this hitting Xbox players too. There was even a class action lawsuit for Xbox controllers about it
This is the big one for me. For me it is such an improvement in both "feel" and in my real performance that I cannot go back to a system without one. When MW2 released without gyro support, I played briefly but wound up putting it down until that was added in an update.
The PS4 controller had a gyro too that was essentially never utilized. I was really hoping this would be the gen when all the major vendors included it, but Microsoft, alone, opted not to.
The speakerphone built into the controller is great too. I can run all the game audio through my hifi, and still talk to my friends on in-game voice chat without using a headset.
And yet the PS5 controller is worse at the most fundamental thing: physical ergonomics. The Xbox controller is so much more comfortable to hold and play with it doesn't even count.
For some. I can’t use the Xbox one for long without pain. The position of the left trigger is particularly bothersome.
The PS3 controller was indeed uncomfortable, but for the past two generations the two competing consoles are on par. Some find one more comfortable, others the other.
The PS1/PS2/PS3 controllers were never great for people with bigger hands, but I've noticed people that really dislike them seem to try to hold them with a full palm grip.
If you have big hands it can be a lot more comfortable to instead kind of wrap your fingers around the grips but not make contact with your palms (kind of like it's a SNES controller with some extra finger grips). I don't know if this is the intended way to do it, but it feels good to me.
I can't stand the offset sticks on the Xbox controller - feels much more natural to me to have both thumbs in the same position. And I massively prefer the shape of the PS4 controller to everything else, including PS5.
My ideal controller would be the PS4 shape and layout, but with the dpad and triggers from the Xbox one/series controller (the PS5 haptic feedback is nice, but hardly any games I play actually use it effectively, and I like the shape of the Xbox triggers more).
Do you use both sticks at the same time?
I think most games are left stick + buttons, meaning the Xbox would not only be symmetrical but also allow for a more relaxed extended thumb instead of the lower down ps position
A fun thing about the Dual sense rumble is that it's just sound data. One time u changed my PC to output to the controller, thinking it would use the speaker, but it just played the audio via vibrations.
(I'm not sure if that's just how all "linear resonant actuators" work, just found it neat)
That’s how the one in the iPhone works as well. I remember people’s surprise (myself included) when it was discovered. Teardowns revealed a second audio amp that wasn’t attached to the speaker and that’s how it was discovered to work.
Owning both systems, this makes a noticeable difference when playing games. All other things being equal, if I get a choice of which system to play a game on, then I choose PlayStation for the controller alone.
I've stopped playing everything but competitive gaming on my PC to play on my PS5 controller. I've tried using the ps5 controller on my PC but the experience isn't great except with wired so I'll keep using my PS5 for some time. The games seem more optimized too.
As much as I like the playstation controller, the layout has always been awkward for me. The layout of the Xbox or switch controllers always felt more easy to use for me.
If you start playing shooting games with gyro aim, you'll definitely feel the difference - because it's not even an option on Xbox.
As far as the haptics go, the degree to which cross-platform games use them really varies. Cold War had cool haptic triggers so you felt the recoil kick, but I don't think that was included in MW2. Some exclusives like Returnal leverage the advanced haptics in a really impressive way, too, but I don't think we'll see that in many cross platform titles.
Yeah, the pack-in toy title Astros Playroom for PS5 is probably the gold standard for Dualsense haptics implementations. It's legitimately immersive, and turns the game from a 'meh' generic themed platformer into an actually compelling game. I was surprised at how much fun I was having pulling cords and stomping little bug things.
It’s more like a tilt - I use it in conjunction with the regular analog stick movement. Together, it adds an extra degree of control, and gyro is a much more sensitive and precise input than an analog stick.
It takes a little getting used to, and there’s a good number of settings parameters you can dial in to your preference (I generally like higher sensitivity and on all the time), but now I’m able to snipe across the map with a controller in fortnite nearly as well as I used to with a mouse and keyboard in battlefield 4. Playing it on an Xbox feels like using stone tools in comparison.
Yes, that is exactly it. Nintendo Switch and Valve Stream deck (and even the old steam controllers) have this functionality. In the case of the Steamdeck, there are sensors in the joysticks to know if your finger is present to then allow mapping to enable/disable gyro aiming as well. Making it easier to reset the devices position in space without also aiming.
The DualSense is literally one of the best reasons to own a PlayStation 5.
After you've played some games that make full use of its advanced haptics (like Demon's Souls, Ghost of Tsushima, Gran Turismo 7, Doom Eternal), going back to other platforms (or even other PS5 games that don't use all the features) feels like something's missing from your hands.. just dead.
Graphics have been Good Enough for several years now. It's time to focus on other areas of the gaming, and the control method is the second most important part of that experience.
Unless you constantly play more than 6 hours straight without rest, the mediocre battery of PS5 controller is not really a problem. Much less so if you have the official charging dock.
I know, it's not a huge deal, but buying a separate dock, or dealing with yet another thing to charge all the time is annoying. So personally I prefer longer battery life over a bunch of fancy features that are likely only going to be used in Playstation exclusives.
I have more than 10 controllers spanning most gaming systems, the only one that consistently runs out while playing is the ps5 one. They could have added a few more 100mAs to make it tolerable :(
I haven't picked up a Dual Shock controller in probably 5 years. How does the "heft" feel these days? I was really put off by the PS4 controller (DS4?) because of the super light, plastic-y feel.
Compare that to a Xbox Elite controller (different price tier, I know) and it feels like a cheap piece of junk.
I assume with all of this new tech the PS5 controller is a bit heftier but I was surprised how much just the weight made a different for me.
No, you can play PS4 (and PS3/2 via emulator or streaming) games just fine with the DS5.
There is one exception, you can't play a PSVR (1) game that requires the camera to track the light bar on the controller with a DS5, but that's very few games and for technical reasons (the DS5 does not have the light bar)
Running on standard replaceable batteries is definitely a feature and not an “outdated design”, especially when it comes to sustainability. And for some devices you can also have both replaceable batteries and charging ports (e.g. some cameras offer that). But yeah, I guess wireless Xbox controllers can’t be charged directly.
Having both, I strongly prefer being able to quickly swap in some new rechargeable double A's versus having to plug in a 15 ft cord from my system to my controller on the couch. I find the latter such a hassle that when my PlayStation controller dies I stop playing.
The PS5 controller has "linear resonant actuators" (previously introduced in the Switch, and in the iPhone before that) which provide a much more fine-grained rumble feature than the older method which is still used in the XBox. The newer feature lets you feel e.g. that the character walks over sand, rubble or grass. The PS5 controller also has actual force-feedback triggers (which simulate e.g. a bow or a gun), while on the XBox there are only simple rumble motors. The XBox controller also still lacks a gyroscope (e.g. used for more precise aiming), which other controllers have for many years now. A really outdated piece of hardware, in contrast to the base console.