Well not really. That money allows you to buy the DualSense Edge controller, a new official PS5 Pro controller that Sony released in January. Sony’s answer to the Xbox Elite controller from a few years ago does a lot of great things. From adding optional back buttons to using different types of analog sticks. But that only scratches the surface. The DualSense Edge is very expensive at $200. If you can muster that much money, it might be worth getting one. Here are three very important reasons.
Replaceable buttons
The DualSense Edge’s first selling point, and the easiest to explain, is that you can remap every button on the controller right from the “Accessories” section of the PS5’s system menu. There’s a very simple tutorial that walks you through how it works, but you probably don’t even need it because the menu is pretty intuitive.
But that is not all. You can also set up, save, and switch between custom button mapping profiles on the fly. In other words, if you want one game to have the same controls as another, simply create a profile, hold down one of the buttons below the analog sticks, and instantly switch to that profile. This is all very quick and easy to understand and can save you a lot of time in the future.
The trigger stops
When Sony released the PS5 in 2020, perhaps the most notable new hardware feature was the haptics. It was found in the DualSense controller triggers. When you virtually fire a gun or speed up a car in a PS5 game, you’ll sometimes get realistic feedback. That is to simulate how you’re affecting those things in real life. This is a prominent feature in games like Returnal and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.
But to be fair, most PS5 games don’t use this feature at all, and exactly none of the PS4 games do. Many games don’t take advantage of the analog nature of the triggers at all. Which means it’s just another binary button press. And for these games, the DualSense Edge’s trigger stop function is your best friend.
Look for the little slider next to each trigger. You will notice that as you claim, the triggers move less and less. Push the slider all the way to the other side and the triggers basically become big buttons with no movement. For fast, nervous games where reaction time is key, this can be very useful.
Or you just don’t like analog triggers in any game. This is also good.
Finally, a fix for stick drift.
Last but obviously not least, the DualSense Edge finally provides an answer to the years of analog stick drift drama surrounding modern video game controllers. Anyone who’s played games in the last decade probably knows this all too well: after using a controller long enough, one (or both) of the analog sticks starts to drift over time, meaning it’s picking up inputs that aren’t happening.
