In the history of all controller gimmicks/innovations rank dual sense

Well since i can't get my greasy paws on a dual sense to test out the controller for my self. And sense I've got a digital PS5 queued up in my cart at bestbuy (my 4th choice of next gen) it got me thinking. Where among all innovations since the NES controller does the dual sense fit in. If this were the original Wii launch and and we were in the midst of a pandemic i'd imagine people would be on AOL shouting to the rafters out motion control innovation. We know they would be filthy liars and I'm sure something similar is going on with dual dense and people are just humble bragging about something that was all the rage on the switch launch too. Something something.. how many balls. So place this piece of tech between two other pieces of innovation tech bread (i.e. n64 analog stick and kinect for 360) with no regard to chronology and let me know.. INnovation or inNOvation.

The Dualsense is pretty cool but it's basically a Dualshock 4 with a better version of the Switch's HD rumble and the trigger resistance thing, which feels gimmicky to me. The rumble stuff really does feel like a generational upgrade over what the DS4 had, and if implemented well it's pretty neat (in Astro's Playroom you can tell what surface you are walking over by the controller's rumble) but a lot of games don't use it very well and it's unclear how much it will catch on. How many Switch games do anything interesting with HD rumble? 5%? Less?

The trigger tension stuff did not impress me. Yes the controller can make the triggers feel stiffer, but I didn't find that immersive at all. You definitely cannot feel the tension on a bow or whatever. It just feels like the controller has stiffer triggers, but they're also kind of squishy in a way and....eh.

The rest of the stuff like motion control and the touchpad and speaker we've all seen before.

For me this is the equivalent of the difference between the Dual analog controller on the PS1 and the Dual Shock. Is having better rumble and trigger tension nice? Yes. Can it be implemented in good ways? Yes. Is it a true "game changer" the way the analog stick or motion controls were? No.

And I suspect the number of games that use it in interesting ways is going to be pretty low. I really hope Sony does some more stuff with it like Astro's Playroom because at least that was neat.

On the other hand I like the ergonomics and the look so it's an A+ controller and it's better than even the DS4 and light years beyond the DS3.

The Dual Sense is not doing anything new. More sensitive precise rumble is nice, but will never e earthshaking it want earth shaming for Switch either which si why people don't talk about it HD Rumble very much either. The trigger feedback with Dual Sense is not new either. Other controllers have done this, added tension to the triggers or buttons, but I do like Sony's design. The spiral gears are simple, and if they prove robust that will be good - time will tell.

I don't think the point of Duel Sense was to change things. The featured added to DualSense were not new technology, they were just good (better?) implementations of prior technology.

Oof it depends on if you're taking into account the best uses of controller stuff, or just the general use for it.

Because as stated in the previous post, it's super cool in Astro Bot and I think it's kinda fun in Miles Morales. But the trigger stuff can feel shoehorned in or not really thought out on these multiplatform games.

For instance, Madden uses the adaptive triggers to feel like you're trying to dig your cleat in the ground when you start to sprint. So the less momentum you've established, the more tension there is in the right trigger (sprint). It seems like someone thought this would be cool without understanding how the triggers work. Since it decides how much tension to create depending on the player you're controlling, it sometimes takes a second to lock the trigger in place, causing me to feel like I'm breaking the trigger if I get the ball and immediately start to sprint. They also used the rumble stuff in the same way as astrobot but it kinda sucks. Like it rumbles the controller in rhythm with your controlled player's feet. Left side for left foot, right for right but it just feels....off. So all of that has actually caused me to turn off the controller stuff anytime I play Madden because it is too distracting and actively makes the game a little harder.

But does the ability to turn off the gimmick also make it a little bit better or worse?

EDIT: I guess where it lands for me is in the same realm as the VMU for Dreamcast. Yeah it's not a specific controller change, and it's something that isn't mandatory, but when it's utilized well it can be something worth showing to people.

I haven't used enough non-Sony controllers to rank them.

I will say that the way Astro's Playroom used the DualSense is amazing. However, it is up to game developers to properly implement the DualSense, and I don't have much confidence that more than a handful of them are going to do it. (I haven't played them myself, but even Sony games like Dark Souls and Miles Morales apparently didn't use it that well.) Bugsnax did have a couple of interesting uses but it wasn't mind-blowing and, in the end, made me enjoy the game about 2% more.

I do like that the "gimmick" is more about enhancing the ways we already use controllers, rather than totally changing it up. Like, it's a very different kind of gimmick than Wii's "TV remote" shape or the DS's stylus or the Kinect camera. So actually, if you don't like the DualSense's gimmicks, all the settings are there to totally disable them. Options are great!

@peffy: Bugsnax is an example of how I expect a lot of developers to use the controller. The big difference is that you can feel small rumbles when you walk that sort of simulate footfalls, but since you don't normally feel footfalls in your hands it feels kind of gimmicky. Controller rumble when you drive over rough terrain is a little less gimmicky because it sort of simulates the feeling of a steering wheel when you're on rough terrain in a car.

The speaker saying the snax names when you catch them is fine, but the DS4 had that too.

So the new features feel more tacked on for the sake of doing something with the controller than integrated into the game in a meaningful way.

There's nothing wrong with it, but as you say it's a tiny element that doesn't really change the game.

I can imagine developers doing more interesting things, like having lockpicking minigames or puzzles that rely on the rumble to convey information rather than just to be "immersive" etc, but when Astrobot had me blow into the microphone to spin a pinwheel I was like "They did this on the original Famicom in 1986." It's literally a gimmick from 1986!

I think that all the interesting things will be done in Sony exclusive titles because you can't make stuff integral to gameplay for a cross platform game where most people won't have a Dualsense, and that alone is going to limit the controller's potential.

Most innovative/best dualsense feature is it's gotten a bit chonkier and feels really nice to hold. Not quite to duke levels yet but we will get there again someday. :'(

The only way something as revolutionary as dual analog sticks will ever appear is if they add integral functionality to a controller that basically every developer needs. I don't think anything like HD Rumble, or its superior derivatives, will do this. Adding an extra shoulder button on each side might be the only controller change on the scale of dual analog sticks that we ever see.

Unless VR becomes the standard way to experience video games.

I haven't actually tried the Dualsense, but my guess is that the "next" big thing is gyro-assisted aiming which has been popular since the 3DS (Ocarina of Time 3D) and Wii U (Splatoon) with PC borrowing it as well. The Dualsense is good as it can support that feature, but it isn't doing anything that the Dualshock 4 (The Last of Us 2) didn't... At least nothing that I expect to catch on.

On that note, there is definitely potential for more precise HD rumble to produce unique experiences and I'd say that the adaptive triggers have mountains of potential but I don't see it being done by Sony or by other studios. (I think the PS5 controller will go far on PC though for some smaller games)

Gyro-assisted aiming is another story since aiming is ubiquitous, 3D Mario has had it for almost two decades and dual analog is not the best on its own. That's a case that can also be a harmless option with ease but also transform the experience.

I'm gonna go ahead and put this at "Above Average" in terms of all-time gimmicks. There have been a lotof duds throughout the years. At its worst, the DualSense's gimmicks will just be underutilized or ignored by developers, and that's ok with me. Plus, it's still a well constructed controller.

The feature I still want to test out (I've had it for less than a month) is the mic in chat. I can't see it replacing a proper pair of headphones, but in a pinch it might be nice to have.

I haven't gotten my hands on one yet, but it seems like the natural current step for affordable haptics, and I do believe that haptics are the next big nut to crack. I've been playing around with my Quest 2 a lot lately, and those controllers are the first I've used with "HD rumble" (is there a non-Switch term for modern rumble?). If that's similar to the DS5's rumble, it's pretty damn cool, and makes me excited for what creative devs can do with it.

Can't speak on the adaptive triggers, but I think it's a clever idea that I hope holds up to extended use. It does bother me that the mechanisms are plastic, all I can picture is someone giving the trigger a hearty squeeze while it's locked and snapping or stripping the screw thinger.

Not as good as the joystick, but better than ROB the Robot

@sombre: ROB the Robot was awesome and would have taken off huge if it weren't for 2 small problems:

1) It didn't really work, basically at all*.

2) Virtually no games supported it.

As a ROB owner I can confidently say that if Nintendo had been able to iron out those insignificant issues we would all be playing with Robotic Operating Buddies to this very day!

*Seriously. You were much better off just controlling the pillars in Gyromite yourself because ROB was absolutely useless.

I like how you basically just said "It would be awesome if it wasn't terrible"

@sombre: More like "it would be awesome if it were functional and Nintendo tried to use it." ROB was very cool, and looked cool, and at the time on the rare occasions when he would work it was awesome. But my dad was a literal research scientist who ran a lab that had an electron microscope (in the 1980s mind you) and he got it to sort of work like twice, and not for lack of trying. This was a man who regularly operated cutting edge scientific equipment and making ROB function was beyond him.

It still looked really cool, which was its actual function. To make people think of Nintendo as a toy rather than a video game, which made it more attractive in the American market where video games were kind of poison at the time. I'm still not sorry we got him, though, because the set that included him also included Gyromite and we had a ton of fun with that game.

ROB is, indeed, basically non functional, but Gyromite is highly underrated.