The Touchpad being unused for the second generation in a row. What the f*ck?!

So, i was drinking mah tea, looking at my DualSense collecting dust, and it hit me. We just went through the whole 8th generation with the touchpad being on the DualShock4. What game used the damn thing? Yea, i bet you had to google the answer to find out because its this useless and underused. Literally no games is using the touchpad capabilities. A touchpad being used as two buttons which are placed on each side of the pad... now that's something.

Now we're almost one full year since the PS5 launched, and i bet you that no other games outside of a tech demo, AstroBot, is using the touchpad on the DualSense. What kind of gimmicky bullshit is this? They could've given us paddles, something that does make a difference, especially in shooters. But no, we got a useless touchpad that nobody, including Sony exclusives, is using.

What a load of crap, Sony.

And that's a good thing.

Don't know about that. They could use it for inventory management. Destiny 2 being a perfect example for this.

It’s a stupid gimmick. Sony always wasting our time with gimmicks. Where are the games Sony? It’s almost Christmas and we have nothing to play.

Hmm. So that's why HZD ported to PC so well in terms of controls.

I think a big problem with it is its on the wrong side of the controller. If you are using it then you cant use the face buttons or analogue stick on one side.

so you either need to design your game to only use the trackpad and one half of the controller or using it becomes a real pain. Since its not an industry standard feature, it also means that whatever work you do on that will only work on the PS5 and people who use PS5 controllers on the PC.

it should be on the backside like on the Vita. That way your index fingers can use them while you can still have your thumbs on the face buttons and sticks. It could have been used to mimick flappy paddle buttons too.

I agree that underside buttons should be the standard at this stage too. I think the reason they are not is Scuff have a patent. Valve lost a case over the steam controller fairly recently. i hear they are appealing it. best of luck to them.

I bought a PS4 pad last year for PSNow on the PC. It's comfortable. I like it. It's hard to use for SF4 imo after using the awesome official SF4 pad. So the touch pad was never used?

Does the PS4 pad still have that Sixaxis motion thing thing or only with the move light at the back?

PS4 pad is leaps and bounds better than my PS1 and PS2 pad. I was trying out the original Tomb Raider again on the PS2 (PS1 BC). That PS1 d-pad is horrible. I think I like the PS2 pad the least out of them. The analogue buttons are dumb. Using them as such for the Ace Combat games just felt silly for acceleration and brakes.

PS4 browser you cant even use the touchpad as mouse what the fk is that bullcrap, while PS5 doesnt have proper a browser yet. You can do all those and more on PC! I do love games where its used though.

If nintendo showed me something is that it is a bad thing to force a gimmick into a game that doesn't need it, So, for me its just a big button.

Astrobot used it well .... but that's because Astrobot did everything well.

I dunno, I never found much purpose for that panel beyond simple presses that essentially turn the whole thing into one big button.

The next iteration of the PS controller can definitely do without.

They could removed it but I am sure the controllers will never be cheaper for the consumer.

It’s an optional way to interact with games. If devs have any interesting ways to use it, they will. But I don’t want the use of it to be forced in any way. That would be silly. It’s also kinda silly to bitch about options. It’s better to have them than not

To be honest it's not that big of a deal.

How is it optional? If the side buttons are used to bring up your map and inventory, that's just how it is in that particular game, and is not optional. Touchpad function itself is not an option either because its literally never used for 8 years now.

So Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Demon Souls, and Ratchet &Clank: Rift Apart doesn’t exist?

Dumb idea in the first place!

I think it drastically shortens the battery life of the controller, so it is sort of a big deal for those that would rather a controller last 25 hours than 5 hours.

The Dualshock 3 used to last like 5x as long as the Dualshock 4 and 5. Maybe something else is going on too, but I'm guessing alot of that has to do with the touchpad.

I think the touchpad should be used alot more to navigate menus and such. It SHOULD be useful. But nobody used it on PS4, so it was kind of stupid to keep that as a feature only to be not used again.

They don't use the touching part of a touchpad, like 99.9999% of games. Using the pad as two buttons is not using the feature that's on playstation controllers since 2013.

It's the greatest technological advancement in user input history, no question about it. Once you've used it in FF XIV you realize there is no going back. I think the most impressive aspect is that it's able to achieve this without having to rely on AA batteries.

I thought maybe it could be a way to put digital Vita games on PS4, as some of those games used swipe commands. But, Sony really shit the bed with BC and cross-system compatibility with PS4. I mean, Vita had access to PSP games, select PS1 and PS2 games, Vita games. But, Sony couldn't even bother to bring its digital PS1/PS2 classics catalog from PS3 to PS4. No wonder BC on PS5 has been so shit implemented because industry gave them such a free pass. Instead, journalists were like Sony is so winning they don't have to compete with Xbox on BC... so yeah, we suffer now because game industry, journalists, gamers cared more about Sony winning in sales, not about the effort they put in giving gamers wanted features.

Yeah I agree with you on this. Sony should've ether use this feature in more games or not bother making it at all and make the battery power for the Duelshock last longer instead.

@mesome713: A Nintendo troll making fun of "gimmicks"...Bwahahaha 🤣

I believe it was used in movie-style games such as Detroit No Human, Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls. But yeah, the touch pad is pretty useless. I'd rather have a traditional button and save battery life.

Works really good for ffxiv on ps5.

I always thought that the touchpad was underutilized on the PS4 controller. When I first saw the Dualshock 4, when I saw the touchpad it immediately made me think of all the mouse and keyboard centric games on PC that could be brought to the PS4 without changing the controls too much but nope developers at most just use it as two buttons and not a mouse touchpad. The gyro on the Dualshock 4 is also underutilized the thing is practically a steam controller with analog sticks with gyro activated on PC.

Yeah pretty lame - I've actually enjoyed all the uses of the ps4 touchpad I HAVE seen - it could/should be enhancing gaming

@hardwenzen: Infamous Second Son used it, kind of, for spray painting.

Nevermind that's more the motion control thing than the touchpad.

Interesting opinion. I think UI designed for controllers stinks. Our totally cool opinions aside tho.....

When has a game ever used the touchpad on PS4/5 to act like a mouse? Far as I've seen it's only been used as two extra buttons or for swiping in a direction. Never seen a game use it like a mouse to control a pointer.

Sell it & buy a Series X!!!!!

Like everything else associated with consoles, it's better on PC. You can map the touchpad to a variety of gestures and keypresses on PC giving you a dozen or so different mappings.

:P

I never pay much attention to loving it or hate it. To me, it was just their, I'll use the Touchpad if a gameplay requires me to do certain task. I will say it can be handy to hit the button just for the map of the game but that's about it. Sorry but really can't say I ever love it/hate it so really can't say it should be scrap or stay.

It's taking up all that real estate on the controller, and I liked it when controllers had bigger, more accesible play and pause buttons:

@hardwenzen: How else you meant to type? The navigation over the letters is slick and very handy when you want to message someone to put their mic on.

What do you mean? You're using the touchpad to type? I've been using the "waggle" to type, its much faster. Not to mention that even if you do use the touchpad for typing, this has nothing to do with actual games. Its in games that this thing should be used because it only makes perfect sense to use a feature that is on a controller for soon to be 10 years.

@hardwenzen: I mean it provides a functional purpose for typing quickly and for sending a quick message during online play; very useful.

As for games, Dreams uses it, Second Son uses it, Astro’s Play Room uses it and I imagine if we ever get an Okami remake or sequel, that would use it too.

Also, the quicker you can type, the quicker you can get back to gaming.

What are you talking about? I use it all the time.

Lol, love the undetected burn.

I use it fairly often, it usually is used as a button, quick hit to get to a map or options.

Describe your usage.

I really like the touchpad and the built in speaker on the PS controller and wish they where utilized more. Ghost of Tsushima made use of it with being able to flick the blood off of your sword and sheath it after combat but most of the time its just an extra map button or an emote. The built in speaker really needs to be used more. Adding conversations and sounds through your controller adds another layer to the game, from phone calls in GTA to the sizzling sound when you brand Orcs in shadow of Mordor.

3rd party don’t really use it, but most 1st party exclusives do tend to utilize the touchpad in most instances.

@R4gn4r0k said:

@AcidTango said:

To be honest it's not that big of a deal.

It's taking up all that real estate on the controller, and I liked it when controllers had bigger, more accesible play and pause buttons:

Yeah I agree. I should of explained what I really meant before. I feel that we don't need more useless gimmicks on controllers anymore and just make them simple again with also a longer battery life as well.

It's good for getting into maps in the game as a quicky button.

Exactly, as a button. A touchpad is not supposed to be a button.

@hardwenzen: Then tell Sony to just have a simple Map button and call it a day😉

Would love that. Controllers wouldn't be sold for $90 here in Canada.