Road to NextGen 2020

The DualSense controller? Yeah, it’s actually next-gen.

First impressions of its use with Astro’s Playroom on the PS5 are way, way better than expected

Astro made a splash in PS VR a while back and is now back to teach gamers how the PS5 controller’s new features work (Image credit: Sony)

Heading into the next generation of home entertainment systems with the PlayStation5 and the Xbox Series S|X there’s been some debate about the point of it all: SSD disks for much faster loading of games are very welcome, of course, but just shinier graphics and better sound in the same games we’ve been playing for the past 10 years don’t make a strong case for upgrading (at least not until SSDs enable types of games that were not possible with traditional hard drives). On top of that, the obvious absence of truly next-generation titles in either system’s lineup on launch day — by “next-generation titles” meaning “games that could never have been made for previous generation’s systems” — does not help Sony’s or Microsoft’s cause at all.

So where’s this one novel thing, this one element of differentiation that would give gamers the reason — or the excuse! — they need to buy into the promise these new systems make? Sony may have an answer to that. For their system, right now, it’s the new DualSense controller.

First, some background