DualSense Controllers To Come With Two New Colours Next Month

Rumours about the DualSense controllers getting new colourways have been swirling around for the past week. But now, Sony Interactive Entertainment has confirmed that the rumours are true. The company also said that they will be available starting next month.

The announcement comes via the official PlayStation blog. The two new colourways are called Midnight Black and Cosmic Red. The former is basically an all-black version of the DualSense controller. As for the latter, the white half is swapped with burgundy red. Beyond that, it doesn’t look like there are any other differences. The PlayStation logo is still in all black, and the face buttons are still in grey.

In the blog post, SIE clarified that while both new colours for the DualSense will be available next month, exact dates will vary by location. This sometimes may mean that they won’t even show up in certain markets. We saw this happening with the DualShock 4 back buttons accessory. But with the official PlayStation Asia Facebook page sharing the two new DualSense colours, and the new colours showing up on the Malaysian page of the PlayStation website, the possibility of them arriving here is ever so slightly higher.

Of course, there’s no mention of price anywhere just yet. Ideally we’d like to see them being priced similarly to the standard white DualSense controller. That being said, it’s more likely that the different colours will see a slight premium added, like the way it is for the DualShock 4 controllers.

Sony Unveils Next-Gen PlayStation VR Controllers; Features Adaptive Triggers And More

Back in February, Sony revealed that it is currently working on a next generation PlayStation (PS) VR system for the PS5 that would feature a brand new headset and controllers. Thanks to a recent entry to the official PlayStation Blog by PSVR lead Hideaki Nishino, we now know what the upcoming controllers will look like.

Based on the images provided, the new PSVR controllers have dropped the PlayStation Move’s “nunchuk” look for a more unique-looking grip design for each hand. Nishino refers to this as the “orb” shape, which has been designed with “great ergonomics” in mind – allowing users to “hold the controller naturally, while playing with a high degree of freedom.” He claims that the surrounding “rings” will not constrain hand movement, and have been tested on a range of hand sizes.

The button layout on the new PlayStation VR controllers bear a slight resemblance to those from Oculus, where each grip comes with two face buttons, a trigger button, a side “grip” button, a Share/Options button, and an analog stick. As mentioned by Nishino in his previous blog post, the new controllers will also include key features from the PS5’s DualSense as well as several new features of its own. These include left and right adaptive triggers, haptic feedback, and a built-in tracking ring for the corresponding VR headset.

Unique to the controller is the finger touch detection feature which can, well, detect your fingers without any pressing in the areas of the device where your thumb, index and middle fingers are placed. Nishino says that this will enable users to make “more natural gestures” with their hands during gameplay.

Other details such as battery life or charging methods were not mentioned in the blog. Development for the new PlayStation VR system is still a long way off and, as previously reported, is not aimed to be launched this year.

Sony Has A Patent That Lets You Use Bananas As Controllers

Sony has a lot of patents for its PlayStations, and especially the controllers. But a new one granted to the company may be the wackiest one yet. To put it simply, it allows you to use “an inexpensive, simple and non-electronic device as a video game peripheral”.

The idea behind the patent is simple, wild as it is. You can basically turn any “non-luminous passive object” as a controller. The patent even comes with images of a banana being used in this manner.

For this to work, you’ll need something like a PlayStation Camera. This will be used to recognise the object that you’re using as a controller, and also track what you’re doing with it to serve as inputs. Naturally, there will be an input generator of sorts, allowing you to map buttons to parts of the object.

Other things being mentioned include the fact that you can use motion of your object to map inputs. And finally, there’s the option to use two objects as controllers.

Because this patent is so wild, you’d probably not want to hold your breath for this feature to actually be released. But if it does, then that’s your reason to hold two random objects in front of a TV, rather than a conventional controller.