Sony enters the high-end custom controller arena with the DualSense Edge

As has long been rumored, Sony announced details of its plans to enter the high-end controller game with the DualSense Edge, an advanced cousin to the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller with added customization options and features.

If you’ve seen or used Microsoft’s Xbox Elite Series 2 or controllers from SCUF or others in that market, you’ll see a lot here that is familiar.

The DualSense Edge includes the same features as the DualSense, such as haptic feedback, but adds the ability to customize button assignment, stick sensitivity, trigger travel distance, and dead zones in multiple interchangeable control profiles.

It also offers interchangeable stick caps and supports back buttons that allow you to perform the same input as with the (for example) triangular, cross, square and circular face buttons without taking your thumb off the right stick. That’s especially useful for serious first-person shooter players, as it allows you to initiate jumps or slides in the standard control schemes of many games while maintaining control of your target.

The controller comes with multiple options for the stick caps and back buttons. That includes either half dome or lever shapes for the rear buttons and either standard, high dome or low dome stick caps.

The stick modules can also be replaced to extend the life of the controller, Sony says, but those replacement stick modules are sold separately — not included in the box, like the caps or back buttons.

A “dedicated Fn button” allows players to switch between preset control configurations, adjust the relative volume of the game and the microphone, and access the PS5’s controller profile settings menu directly from the controller itself.

The DualSense Edge comes with a case to store all those extras, as well as a USB-C cable that locks onto the controller to prevent accidental disconnection.

Sony hasn’t mentioned a release date or price for this controller, but judging by other competing high-end controllers like Microsoft’s Xbox Elite Series 2 or SCUF’s Reflex for PS5, it probably isn’t cheap. Those controllers usually range from about $180 to over $200. Sony’s base controller for the PS5, the DualSense, is already quite pricey, with a suggested retail price of $70.

For the most part, the DualSense Edge looks almost like a feature-to-feature counterpart to Microsoft’s Xbox Elite Series 2. That said, the Microsoft controller also emphasizes nicer materials and feels in the hand, and Sony’s announcement didn’t say anything about it. how the DualSense Edge will (or will) differ from the DualSense in that regard.

PlayStation VR2 gets a release window

Sony has finally also mentioned a release window for the PlayStation VR2, the PlayStation 5 exclusive successor to the highly successful 2016 PlayStation VR headset for the PlayStation 4.

In a tweet and an Instagram post, Sony announced that the headset is “coming in early 2023” and accompanied the social posts with a picture of the headset and its two controllers, although we’ve seen both before.

As we learned earlier, the headset has a 110-degree field of view, a resolution of 2,000 x 2,040 per eye at 90 Hz or 120 Hz, and features HDR OLED displays for each eye.

Perhaps most importantly, it supports eye tracking that enables foveated rendering, a technique that allows VR headsets to focus their horsepower on the pixels that are clearest in the center of your view, while allowing natural blur in your peripheral vision. .

And it connects to the PS5 with a single USB-C cable without the need for an external camera — a far cry from the wire-laden clunky connections seen in the original PSVR.

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List image by Sony