The PS4 is quickly becoming a thing.

For reference, here's a handy dandy table:

Hopefully this means the battery life will be improved in spite of that big light on the top.

Source: FCC , Engadget

Fortunately still lighter than the 360 controller! Hopefully its battery will last longer than the Dual Shock 3 does, though.

@audiobusting said:

Yeah, I like that it's heavier but not too much so and since battery tech has improved a bunch since back then, hopefully it'll run for more cycles too.

I haven't had my DS3 fail on me but I don't think Ryan was alone - and having to replace your controller would suck.

The DS3 on a full charge ran for a good amount of time. The only problem was, it was such a pain to charge most people didn't charge them fully or at all. Mostly since the USB ports on the PS3 wouldn't supply power if the system was off, so you couldn't just leave the controllers plugged in.

The PS4's USB ports do provide power when the system is off, which is a nice change. It's still only a trickle of power, but that's enough if you're going to leave it plugged in overnight or for any long stretches of not playing.

The big light is actually just some multi-color LEDs, which have very little power draw. It'll probably draw less power than those big heavy rumble motors despite being on all the time.

Those both sound like great things. Hopefully it works out well. And also, I never really had a problem with the DS3 charge time. Considering I don't have to buy new batteries or anything, I thought it was always workable. Though having the PS4 always on to some extent so that it can charge the controller whenever will be really useful.

I like that is a bit heavier so it feels more significant in hand, but still lighter than the 360 controller. I wonder how much a power draw the touchpad will be although it remains to be seen if/how it will be implemented.

I haven't had any PS3 controllers fail on me and I always have one plugged into my PC so the battery was never an issue for me, but I think I'd appreciate the added weight. Speaking of PC, I really hope the drivers will be better with PS4, even if they're not official. MotionInJoy works fine most of the time but when it doesn't it's a real mess.

Guess that's the one upside to the Xbox One. I won't have to buy the box to enjoy the new controller. Those things will likely be officially supported by both the OS and all the multiplatform games. Sexy hi-def rumble, here I come.

@seppli said:

Yeah, I mean that's the way most of the time with PS3 but it has also caused BSOD on my PC more than once. The drivers are also a major pain to remove completely (includes fun-time with Regedit) which I had to do once because they were somehow conflicting with a Wacom tablet. So official drivers, or at least ones that don't do any of the above would be really great.

@selfconfessedcynic: I've still got an original sixaxis that holds a good charge but I'm sure there are people who play enough games to have had the controller die.

That said didn't Sony have some sort of mail in battery replacement service available if you weren't confident enough to open up the controller and replace it yourself?

I wish it was even a little heavier, but that's much better. That's also a rather substantial upgrade for the battery, almost twice as much.

All this looks very nice, but still, I can't wait to get my hands on one and see whether or not it's more comfortable than the previous dualshocks. Both controllers sucked for comfort this generation.

I hope the triggers are improved...

@probablytuna:

The triggers certainly look better, they're concave now and devs say they're less mushy. BUT I will say I've never liked the 360 triggers either.

If it were up to me, I'd go 100% digital with my buttons. I'm the kind of crazy that thinks the best "triggers" will always be the DualShock 2. More than anything, I hate doing something unintended because the triggers where even slightly depressed (I had this problem with DmC a whole bunch using my 360 wired controller on PC).

Not sure - I hadn't heard of one, but then as I stated earlier, my PS3 controller never borked on me.

Ryan made it sound like the only option was to just replace it, but he's not always 100% well informed.

You aren't alone in this! While I like the triggers when used for driving games or gameplay that involves driving, I really don't like it when it's use for shooting guns. It just never feels right. That's why I kinda like games such as Killzone 2 and Uncharted series that maps the shooting/aiming on the L1/R1, it feels way better. I'll be fine if the triggers are what they are but they should allow us to map the buttons to our preferences.

@probablytuna said:

Oh wow, I always thought I was weird when it came to that. In general, yeah, I don't mind triggers when they need to be held down - so as you say, analogue triggers are fantastic for driving games as you can really feather your acceleration / breaking. Also, for Assassin's Creed, holding down the triggers to free run isn't so bad.

But anything which I like exact on/off action with - so shooting guns - I ALWAYS remap it to L1/R1. You're totally right - I love games which let us do this.

Hi5 dude.