Year one review - touchpad for DS4 essential or a gimmick?

After one year of playing PS4 games, the touchpad have become an essential part for DS4 controllers, it became very intuitive to the way people play games and a very useful button especially open world games and the way players access their maps for example, this was a great use for accessing maps in 2014.

The touchpad became a standard for different games and from the countless other expected uses of the touchpad for different games, one standout use in 2014 was how to access maps.

During the period of time playing 4 open world games from Ubisoft then going back to GTA5 PS4 edition, the Touchpad clearly left a mark on my brain on how to use controllers in 2014.

I immediately clicked the touchpad to access the map since my brain clearly adopted to the touchpad and it was the natural thing to do but it didn't work so I thought maybe there is something wrong with the touchpad, afterwards I tried again and after two tries I realized how outdated and antiquated GTA5 felt when accessing their map because you have to pause the game by pressing the options button> go through the menu> click the X button to access map instead of one click from the touchpad..

This is one clear advantage of the touchpad over the Xbox One controller.

What is your opinion of the touchpad? did it become an essential part of the controller? do you feel it's nothing special yet?

Discuss.

Regardless of your opinion of the touchpad, it is not essential

Seems dumb as is the light

Nice button, used it in many games works very well

Used it as a mouse on my PC... until I got the x1 controller. Havent used it since.

I wish more games used the touch pad. It's actually pretty cool.

It's a gimmick. Only game i see trully using it has part of the core experience is Tearaway Unfolded. Until Dawn only uses the light because it was a PSmove title originally, latter ported to ps4 exclusive

Worse gimmick that the Wii U touch screen. Same deal with that annoying light...

It's 100% essential if you have a Vita TV... lol.

It's not shoehorned in unnecessarily enough to be a gimmick, it's certainly not essential. All it is to me so far is an extra button or two, easily accessible. Wouldn't miss it if it wasn't there, don't dislike it when it's used.

Eh, I don't mind it. It's mostly used as an extra button, and I do wish it was utilized more properly, but at least it's unobtrusive, unlike that stupid light.

When using it with my PS4, it's a non issue, just a couple of extra buttons that could be put to good use.

Problem is, I usually use my DS4 on my PC and I feel it just gets in the way... again, not really an issue, I just need to remember not to touch the damn thing.

It's fine. I don't see how it could be a gimmick since it can act as another button

This. It was literally just wasted space on older controllers.

So if that space was packed full of extra buttons it would make those controllers better?

@charizard1605: It wasn't bad for typing, though.

Compared to having nothing there? It certainly wouldn't make them worse.

it's useless. i do enjoy the speaker in the controller gimmick though...

It's the most useful gimmick in recent years between the Sony and MS consoles.

Has there been a use for it in games yet? I just know it can be used for typing... but even for that I rather use the d-pad.

still better than ps3 sixasis hated the games that forced you to use that gimmick mechanics where you had to tilt the controller

I like it, it's not forced on you which is a plus. I use it in farcry 4 to select weapons. I would like to use it to scroll text like reading lore or books in rpgs.

That was probably the most throw away gimmick I can think of.

The only use I got out of it was boob jiggling in MGS4 and NGS2.

Not essential or a gimmick. It's nice to have and it can function as a multi purpose button. Different button presses depending on which side you press the button as well as swipes.

A solid addition to the PS4's controller. However for any precise use it's useless. It's way too inaccurate and low-resolution to act like a trackpad on a laptop. It's nice to have though but it's really only good for button presses and swipes.

Overall it gives the controller more flexibility and I think some sort of touch-pad should be featured on all controllers moving forward. Giving developers and players more controls is never a bad thing.

It's been useful so far, and I think it has a lot of potential....more than Kinect.

But to say whether it's a gimmick only a year after its release is just stupid.

I'd prefer if it was a screen.

Useless gimmick cause we're not talking about it's uses as a button. The uses for it as a touch pad are definitely a waste and a gimmick. Sony couldn't have just put a regular button and called it a day. Instead they have some useless touch pad that is almost nonexistent in games.

GIMMICK!!!!!

@HAZE-Unit said:

After one year of playing PS4 games, the touchpad have become an essential part for DS4 controllers, it became very intuitive to the way people play games and a very useful button especially open world games and the way players access their maps for example, this was a great use for accessing maps in 2014.

The touchpad became a standard for different games and from the countless other expected uses of the touchpad for different games, one standout use in 2014 was how to access maps.

During the period of time playing 4 open world games from Ubisoft then going back to GTA5 PS4 edition, the Touchpad clearly left a mark on my brain on how to use controllers in 2014.

I immediately clicked the touchpad to access the map since my brain clearly adopted to the touchpad and it was the natural thing to do but it didn't work so I thought maybe there is something wrong with the touchpad, afterwards I tried again and after two tries I realized how outdated and antiquated GTA5 felt when accessing their map because you have to pause the game by pressing the options button> go through the menu> click the X button to access map instead of one click from the touchpad..

This is one clear advantage of the touchpad over the Xbox One controller.

What is your opinion of the touchpad? did it become an essential part of the controller? do you feel it's nothing special yet?

Discuss.

So your reasoning for the touchpad being so "essential" is that you can access the map in several games by pressing it? You do realize that the "select" or "back" button served this exact purpose for every controller that preceded the DS4, right? The only difference is that its bigger and in the middle of the controller this time around. The Xbox One has this same feature except the button is smaller and it's not located on the center of the controller.

With that being said, there are games that have made good use of the touchpad, most notably Infamous Second Son and Killzone: Shadow Fall. In these games, you actually moved your finger across the touchpad in a certain direction in order to perform a particular action. This is notable...Not pressing the button to pull up the map...

Or you can just hit the back / select button to view the map like its always been.

So no. No clear advantage over the XOne controller when you can just hit the 'view' button to see the map which is just as easy and intuitive as hitting the trackpad.

Its pretty hilarious that your justification of Sony shoehorning in the trackpad is it being a button.

Its a waste of battery. Thats all it'll ever be.

its a gimmick, wouldn't surprise me if its dropped in future controllers

Welcome, but non-essential. It's a distant second to the nuisance that is the light bar (primarily for draining the controller's battery).

I don't see the problem with it, I'm assuming you can use it with the web browser, I have no idea I have a DS4 but I don't have a PS4... use it on my PC as a mouse, which is great if you far away from the mouse/keyboard.

Dualshock 4 is more of a gimmick than wiiu gamepad. Wiiu gamepad actually incorporates its features into games and has offscreen play, but get this; with all those NFC and 6inch screen going and a camera--it still beats the dualshocks 90 minute battery.

I love it for map/inventory access.

If Sony wanted to copy Nintendo they would have added a screen to the controller. The touchpad does not get in the way, nor does it make the controller gigantic like the Wii U pad.

It is easily the best game controller ever made.

They did. Thats that the Vita is for.

More likely underused to be a gimmick.

Infamous used it.

Sony did that prior to Wii U

essential? no. useless? no. Its great but the only game that used it decently is Outlast. For example, why can't i use it as a mouse cursor when going through my inventory in an rpg? When DS4 was shown for the first time, that's all i wanted and thought it'd be in every game... over a year goes by and not a single game used it properly. Da f*ck Sony,.

it's a big gimmick so far much like motion controls

I find it to be a big annoyance in some games more than anything. Because it's so close to some of the buttons depending on the size of persons fingers. You tend to accidentally touch the touch pad and even the slightest touch will trigger things like menus or features that you don't want to occur. For instance in Far Cry 4 the weapon wheel pops up every time you slightly touch it which leads to you randomly switching a weapon whilst in a gun fight. Or in Dust An Elysian Tail which it is used as an alternative way to make Dust dodge roll left and right, you will just randomly start dodging unintentionally. Or in AC Black Flag where it's used to control the map, if you decide to use the analog to control the map instead(which is far more accurate) you can tend to touch the damn touch pad leading to the cursor on the map flying all the way to the corner of the screen. It's an annoying feature and I wish I could completely disable it.

Why the hell are you changing the subject? Stop talking about other products not relevant to this conversation. BTW, Nintendo didn't freaking invent Accelerometers or Gyroscopes.

If you want to bring up past products then I guess Nintendo ripped off the Vectrex's controller since it was the first controller to have a self centering analog stick. Nintendo also made Pong and Breakout clones in the 70's. Nintendo isn't always innovative.