Going again a long time, a well-liked recurring matter within the sport business has been that sport controllers have too many buttons. They confuse individuals who don’t play commonly, the considering goes. They scare off new gamers. Nintendo spent a technology testing the idea with the Wii. Apple constructed a cellphone based mostly on related logic.
With its new DualSense Edge controller, Sony doesn’t appear significantly anxious about any of that. Including up issues you’ll be able to press, transfer, speak into, click on, swipe, slide, or swap out, there are greater than 30 methods to work together with the machine. That doesn’t embody alternate states like holding down buttons, or the intensive choices you’ll be able to tweak in PlayStation 5 menus.
Very like Xbox’s Elite collection of professional controllers, Sony’s DualSense Edge was by no means meant to attraction to everybody. However after spending a while with it not too long ago, it appears totally complete and an incredible match for these keen to shell out $199.99 to optimize each side of their controller.
The large pitch for the DualSense Edge is that it offers you far more management over varied points of the usual DualSense. That features bodily adjustments and add-ons: the grips really feel extra rubbery and fewer more likely to slip out of your fingers; you’ll be able to swap out the analog sticks to exchange them; you’ll be able to swap out stick caps to decide on your most popular size and elegance; you’ll be able to swap in lever or half-dome buttons on the again of the controller for extra button inputs; you’ll be able to slide a small swap to regulate the firmness of the triggers; you’ll be able to maintain both of two “perform” buttons to vary your controller settings on the fly; and you’ll lock a wired wire in place with a “connector housing” cap to stop any likelihood of it being disconnected throughout a sport.
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Picture: Sony Interactive Leisure
It additionally contains intensive software program menus within the PS5 interface that allow you to alter issues like analog stick sensitivity and deadzones, supplying you with management over several types of stick speeds to higher fits completely different kinds of video games. And people choices are constructed round a customized profiles system, so you’ll be able to shortly soar between completely different kinds of play or throughout completely different video games and maintain your exact settings able to go at a second’s discover.
All of it works very properly. It’s enjoyable to tinker with the completely different settings and set video games up as you want them, like making the triggers stiff for preventing video games or making your flip pace faster for shooters. It’s easy to vary the settings within the menus and, in some circumstances, on the fly when you’re taking part in video games.
Granted, after I first began utilizing the controller, I unintentionally pressed one of many perform buttons a few instances when not paying consideration, and whereas many buttons on the controller could be disabled, these can’t. Although after getting used to the controller over the course of an hour or so, this gave the impression to be much less of a difficulty.
Much like the Xbox Elite, the value shall be a difficulty for a lot of. The DualSense Edge prices $200, which isn’t far off from related professional controllers, but nonetheless lots contemplating how related the Edge seems in comparison with the usual DualSense on the floor. You can argue that it feels such as you’re paying for Sony’s R&D greater than the precise plastic and metallic that comes with the machine, given how DualSense Edge prices nearly thrice what a DualSense commonly does.
One of many questions I’ve been considering over since taking part in with it’s whether or not DualSense Edge is a greater controller for individuals who don’t wish to customise each element of their expertise. Is it for PS5 homeowners who simply play video games to understand them, quite than to good their efficiency?
This isn’t a controller for everybody, even in case you have the cash and really feel such as you need “the perfect” of all the things. There are a couple of options that make for a extra pleasurable expertise exterior of aggressive play, like utilizing the lever again buttons to make racing video games really feel extra reasonable, and it’s handy to have the ability to simply swap between preset profiles for various video games. There’s additionally the bonus that, theoretically, the Edge ought to permit you to reduce the issue of analog stick drift, since you’ll be able to widen the deadzone within the heart of the sticks the place drift happens.
However for probably the most half, the attraction of DualSense Edge isn’t that it’s a greater controller — it’s that you could customise it. You’ll be able to tweak it a lot that, for some gamers, I think about all of the choices will really feel overwhelming. For many who compete at a excessive degree, although — or those that wish to assume they do — it’s laborious to think about not wanting the toolbox that Sony’s put collectively.
Sony Interactive Leisure will launch the DualSense Edge on Jan. 26, 2023. Pre-orders can be found from Sony’s PlayStation Direct web site, with different main retailers promoting the brand new controller on Feb. 23, 2023.
