PS5's DualSense Can Fail After Just 417 Hours
iFixit investigated the problem of drift in Sony's DualSense controller for the PS5. The conclusions are not optimistic. The device can stop working after just 417 hours of use.
- Drift in DualSense is becoming an increasingly serious problem;
- iFixit decided to look into the matter and investigate what is the reason for such a state of affairs;
- Cutting corners on component quality and bad design - these are the conclusions after their analysis.
The problem of the drift in the DualSense controller is becoming a high-profile issues. Reports of the first class action lawsuits that law firms intend to file against Sony appeared quite quickly. However, if we are primarily interested in the reason for the malfunction, iFixit decided to check it out.
ALPS products, which have been used in controllers for several generations, are to blame. Their service life is set at 2 million movement cycles and 500 thousand clicks. During the website's tests, it turned out that after 417 hours of playing Call of Duty: Warzone, the DualSense controller began to show the first signs of wear on the analogs. This gives an average of 7 months of trouble-free operation if we spend 2 hours a day playing.
After a long analysis it was specified where the problem lies - sensor wear, spring damage, stretching of materials, as well as the usual dirt in the form of dust and moisture, which gets into the mechanisms.
The problem is not only the quality of the component, but also the way it is installed. In the PS5 pad Sony decided to solder it directly to the motherboard with sixteen points, which excludes a simple and quick repair by replacing the defective element. As a result, many people are forced to send the DualSense directly to Sony, hoping for a replacement.
Despite positioning the controller as a premium product due to the innovations that have been implemented (haptic vibrations, new triggers), the analogs, or more accurately the device that controls them, are the same run-of-the-mill components that companies have been using in their controllers for years, which was already mentioned at the beginning. This shows that Sony was well aware of potential failures, as the same device is used DualShock 4, among others.
As long as the warranty is in place, the problem won't be that much of an issue. However, when this period is over and players have to pay for the repairs, the topic will return with a vengeance. We can only keep our fingers crossed that Sony will respond sooner or later and change something in the design of the analogs, releasing a revision of the DualSense controller.
