Though it releases later this year, we still don’t know much about the ins and outs of Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 5: one of the most anticipated releases in all of media. There are still so many questions left to be answered, one of them being whether or not your DualShock 4 can be used with your PlayStation 5.
Well, until now.
In a blog post detailing cross-compatibility between PS4 and PS5 for accessories, Sony confirmed that you will be able to use your DualShock 4 on the PS5, but not completely:
“The DualShock 4 wireless controller and PlayStation officially licensed third-party gamepad controllers will work with supported PS4 games.”
What this means is that the DualShock 4 will only work for PS4 games that are backwards compatible with the PS5. The DualShock will not work with PS5 exclusive games.
The fact that we saw leaks of a PS5 dev kit being played with a DualShock 4 already suggested that this might be a possibility.
It’s certainly a good move from Sony to allow players to use their old controllers on the new hardware, especially as Xbox Series X will be playable with an Xbox One controller. Not allowing it would be a bit of an oversight, especially in the face of the competition.
With the PS5 getting its very own controller, the DualSense, some players might have been trying to save a few pennies on a second controller by just using the DualShock from their PlayStation 4 instead. There will be thousands of backwards compatible PS4 games for the PS5, so thousands of chances to dust off the old DualShock 4.
To add to this, though, it’s a shame that the DualShock 4 won’t be compatible at all with the new PS5 games. It was obvious that games like Astro’s Playroom wouldn’t be properly compatible with a DualShock 4. The console’s pack-in game, Astro’s Playroom, has been designed to fully make use of the DualSense, so its functionality with the DualShock 4 was of course going to be limited. It’s a tiny bit disappointing that they couldn’t find some workarounds at all.
As we still don’t even know the cost of the DualSense, or really every single little thing it could do, the PS5 being backwards compatible with the DualShock 4 could be a nice security blanket for those hesitant to make the leap, or anyone who isn’t swayed by its games. Controllers aren’t cheap these days, so this compatibility could save families quite a lot of money down the line when they could just reuse their old controllers.
For that reason, we’d suggest hanging onto all things PlayStation 4 for the time being.
PlayStation 5 releases Holiday 2020, read about all of its confirmed games here.
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