By Tommaso Villa
At the beginning of April, Sony publicly revealed the Playstation5 Gamepad, which is going to play a key role during the next generation face off with Microsoft’s console XBOX Series X.
“It was about time,” says Ludovica Giovannelli, gamer in the triangle area. “At this point, Microsoft has revealed everything about their console: both the technical parts and the look of the hardware have been known to the public for a while. I don’t know what Sony’s marketing strategy is, but if they were not going to show anything about what they had prepared, fans were surely going to be angry.”
During the Playstation panel on the GDC livestream in March, Sony showed an hour-long presentation about the specs for the next-generation console. Even though the interest was majorly expressed by fans, many did not appreciate how the company handled the presentation.
As Giovannelli was saying, Microsoft has been far ahead in their marketing campaign compared to its rival. The next-gen console XBOX Series X has been opened in dedicating Youtube videos in order to show all the details to the general public.
On the other hand, Playstation had not revealed anything until the last month and because of this reason, fans started becoming uneasy with the situation; pretending news from Sony.
The presentation that finally happened during GDC worsened the situation under a certain perspective. Everyone was expecting to see Sony finally announce its next console, but the presentation was very technical focused and did not show anything concrete to the public.
Playstation fans were finally partially satisfied when the new DualSense gamepad was recently announced. The PS5 controller has a similar design to previous versions, but has a very contrasting color.
While old gamepads always stuck to the dark layout, this is majorly white showing a brave change from the gaming giant.
Another new feature is that the controller will have a built-in microphone that will therefore not require users to have a headset to speak in voice chats while playing their favorite game.
Many expressed their worry regarding this last feature as they think that it will bring annoying situations during online matches.
“A built-in microphone means that we are going to be able to hear everything that is happening in the surroundings of the console. I can already imagine dogs barking and kids crying during matches. Currently it’s very easy to just mute yourself with headphones. I am not sure how it’s going to work now,” said Giovannelli.
The last newly added feature that was announced involves the PS5 gamepad having a “create” button that will allow the player to interact with its footage of played games. It was communicated that this feature will sound familiar to those who often utilize the “share” function on the current-gen controllers.
Playstation has then divided its fans. Some are excited for the update, while others seem to not appreciate the changes.
Playstation5 and its brand new DualSense gamepad are supposed to launch at the end of the year. No changes have currently been announced due to the Coronavirus pandemic.