2020 was a bit of a downer year thanks to the worldwide health pandemic outbreak known as the coronavirus. It’s a virus that’s proved to be problematic still in 2021 and while we are starting to get a better grip on this new reality of mask-wearing and social distancing, some individuals are still having to overcoming the dreaded cabin fever. If you were tired of being stuck in the home and waiting for some new entertainment then chances are you were interested in the latest console platforms.
Both Sony and Microsoft introduced their latest video game generation console platforms into the marketplace. We have even seen a resurgence of players picking up last-generation console platforms along with the Nintendo Switch. Unfortunately, another big issue we really started to see last year was the Joy-Con drift. This is a term used for the Nintendo Switch console controllers that would recognize an analog stick movement input without the controller being touched.
That problem eventually lead to Nintendo offering free repairs with a pile of lawsuits hitting the company over the issue. Now we’re seeing this issue come up with other console platforms. In fact, a new analyst report video from iFixit went more into detail about the latest PlayStation 5 console controller release, the DualSense.
Consumers are starting to notice that their DualSense controller also suffers from drifting issues. It’s not much of a surprise as the teardown from iFixit shows that the analog sticks for the major console manufacturers use the same joystick hardware from ALPS. After doing some math and estimations, the conclusion was that the DualSense controller would start seeing issues with drifting after 417 hours of use.
To some that may sound like an awfully long time without much worry of their DualSense running into any problems. However, there are others who may end up hitting that hour mark a bit quicker depending on how often they play video games. Either way, its analog drift is an issue that has plagued plenty of players so it would be interesting to see if any manufacturers make a major change to ensure that their controllers are not finding their way of being repaired or completely replaced as soon as the competitions controllers.