Sony Patent Suggests DualSense Could Get Hot And Cold To Reflect Gameplay
Sony has been evolving its controller designs since the original PlayStation. While it didn't invent the idea of rumble, 1999's DualShock helped to popularise it and the Japanese company, which has a reputation for innovative hardware, has never stopped tweaking and iterating.
For the PS3, it added Sixaxis, while the PS4's DualShock 4 featured a touch pad and light bars. The PlayStation 5's DualSense might be Sony's best design yet, with the haptic feedback and adaptive triggers helping to immerse players in such games as Returnal, Horizon Forbidden West, and Gran Turismo 7, to name a few. And from the looks of a new patent, Sony isn't stopping anytime soon.
Related: The Callisto Protocol Has The Best Use Of PlayStation’s DualSense So Far
The patent (via exputer) describes a gel-like material that has elastic properties, allowing a controller to deform in some way if it were to be implemented. "The shape or hardness of the portions of the elastic members 11 (grips) changes in response to a process performed by [a game]", the patent says.
How would this be useful? Well, the patent details a use case. "For example, to present the material of a virtual object in a game space to the user as a haptic sensation".
Not only that, the patent reveals how a controller could change temperature during gameplay to reflect something in the game, such as a fiery sword, let's say, making the controller warm to the touch, or conversely you're in an icy environment and the controller feels cooler.
The background to the patent talks about how gaming controllers typically use materials that are "relatively difficult to deform" such as plastics, while this new invention is supposed to provide a controller "capable of enriching haptic
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