Toshimasa Aoki, Manager of the Product Planning Department, has already gone in-depth about the DualShock 4 this week by discussing the different analog stick layouts they tried and the stiffness for the sticks, with today being all about the buttons you’ll be using on your controller (via GamesBeat).
When it comes to the differences between the DualShock 4 and DualShock 3, Aoki revealed how “a lot of people like the feeling of the [DS3’s] buttons,” so they “made them as much the same as possible [for the DS4]. I don’t think you would feel a difference.” Also, with the face buttons being so “iconic,” Lead Gameplay Programmer for Guerrilla Games Tommy de Roos said, “There was a strong urge against changing that.”
After Aoki talked about how the DualShock 4’s buttons have replaced the DS3’s analog data with digital – “the mechanism inside is a little different, and the data that games get is different” – he revealed how the Square and Circle buttons on the DS3 are slightly farther apart than the Triangle and X buttons:
Nobody noticed it. Actually, when we were testing and laying it out, we said, ‘Hey, the DualShock 3 isn’t really the same distance there.’
On the DualShock 4 though, they now form a perfect square because “when we designed the DualShock 4,” Aoki explained, “we wanted the touch pad to be in the middle and as large as possible but not enough to make the controller really big. We made the square and circle a little closer, so they’re the same distance as all the buttons. That saves horizontal space to have more for the touch pad.”
For the L2/R2 buttons, they’ve been completely re-worked on the DualShock 4, as you can see above (the buttons are even clearly labeled now!). “When we discussed what people hated about the DualShock 3,” says Aoki, “the very first thing was always that, when you put the controller down, it fast-forwards your Netflix.” So, expect accidental fast-forwards to happen much less often on the PS4.
Are you excited for full-fledged triggers on the DualShock 4? Let us know in the comments below.
