Coming completely out of left field, Sony has announced today that an official Back Button attachment will be released for the DualShock 4 on January 23rd 2020.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who thought this was some sort of practical joke after being turned on to the official headline, but after further inspection, the peripheral looks to be ingenious.
The official attachment will offer:
- Tactile feedback
- An OLED display
- Remapping on the fly
- 2 distinct inputs
- Mapping for up to 16 different button actions
In a market once relegated to the Xbox One, Sony looks to be capitalizing on the thirst for Elite controller variants in their own budget friendly way.
The official peripheral, costing $29.99, could also bridge the gap towards forward compatibility come time for the launch of the PlayStation 5 next year.
Does this point to the default inclusion of paddles in the DualShock 5?
Time will tell.
In the interim, the Back Button attachment should serve as a boon to those heavily invested in input dependent genres like FPS and action games.
Speaking for myself, dividing attention between the right analog stick and action buttons during online matches can be maddening. Yes, this can be somewhat remedied by resorting to different control schemes or grip styles – the claw grip for one – but you’ll almost always be dealing with discomfort.
While equal parts overdue and unexpected, it’s great that Sony is finally attending to the trends of the market. The announcement also fosters excitement in terms of what this could mean for the manufacturer’s next console.
Lover of games, tech, nature, and strange electronic music. Shaped by Sega, PlayStation, Nintendo, and Xbox – platform agnostic ever since. Currently overwhelmed by choice on my Xbox Series X thanks to Game Pass.