A study has brought us rather alarming results about the new controller for the PlayStation 5.

Regarding the DualSense, we already heard about how there’s a class-action lawsuit happening over its drifting in the United States (ditto for the Nintendo Switch’ Joy-Cons), and iFixIt has inspected the new Sony controller. According to their analysis, the DualSense analogue sticks can only survive 417 hours of usage, and it will get worse over time. This is why Sony is in trouble: we already wrote in December (!) how people already had issues with the controller…

The DualSense’s internals is having mostly the same components that the DualShock 4 used. In other words: Sony may have improved the controller’s technology, many of the parts are the same as before. ALPS is the manufacturer of these parts, and they provided a sheet that reveals the „durability” of these parts. The DualSense’s analogue sticks’ potentiometers (the rotating part of the stick) has a life of two million cycles, but the centre push (aka the R3/L3 button) has just 500K. 1/4 of the previous component.

iFixIt tested the durability by playing Call of Duty: Warzone, but it only got to 417 hours of gameplay before the stress thresholds were met. So if you play an average of two hours a day, the issues might happen to you in May. iFixIt claims that wear and tear is just one reason behind the drifting. Dust and other invasive materials can also cause it. They recommend either attempt to fix the controller yourself or via an experienced tech; send the controller back to Sony under its manufacturer’s warranty (which should see you covered for up to 12 months), or buy a new DualSense controller.

„After this research, it’s bizarre to us that console makers don’t consider joysticks to be consumable parts and design them to be easily replaced. No device rated for a finite number of actions, especially one that lives next to so much contamination and takes so much abuse, can maintain perfect performance forever,” iFixIt wrote.

Source: PSU