A patent filed by Sony Interactive Entertainment with the United States Patent Office on October 16 might be hinting at what the controller for the PS5 might look like. Based on how it’s described, it sounds a lot like the DualShock 4, except with one significant change- it might have a touch screen.
The patent describes what sounds like a regular DualShock with the grips, analog sticks, triggers, and face and direction buttons, with a touchscreen “along the top surface of the main body”- so basically where the trackpad is right now on the DualShock 4.
“A controller for interfacing wirelessly with a computing device is provided, including the following,” the patent’s abstract reads, “a housing defined by a main body, a first extension extending from a first end of the main body, and a second extension extending from a second end of the main body, the first extension and the second extension for holding by a first hand and a second hand of a user, respectively; a touchscreen defined along the top surface of the main body between the first extension and the second extension; a first set of buttons disposed on the top surface of the main body proximate to the first extension and on a first side of the touchscreen; and a second set of buttons disposed on the top surface of the main body proximate to the second extension and on a second side of the touchscreen.”
Other features of the DualShock 4 are also included in the patent. That includes the share button “configured to activate a sharing interface for sharing gameplay to a social graph”, and the light bar, described as “a translucent panel defined along a front side of the main body; and a light defined in the main body for illuminating the translucent panel”.
All of which, essentially, seems like a DualShock 4, but with a touchscreen where there should be a trackpad- which sounds like an interesting idea, and one that seems to be taking cues from what Nintendo have done with the Switch, and did earlier with the Wii U as well.
Of course, as is the case with all patents, there’s no guarantee this will see the light of day in its current form (or even any form at all), but it does give us an idea of what kinds of stuff Sony is going for with the inevitable PS5. Not so long ago, we also reported about patents filed by Sony pertaining to backwards compatibility and V-sync. Read more on that through here.