The first drifting problems related to the PS5 controller sticks, the DualSense, have recently surfaced within a brand new teardown video of the iFixIt technical website, revealing that the new generation Sony pad has a functional life of approximately 417 hours and that the figure should deteriorate over time.
The subject of legal action in recent days, many users have reported to the Japanese company a lack of precision (a phenomenon called drifting) regarding the analog sticks on the DualSense controller and now it seems that we know why.
Taking advantage of the same issue that was previously seen in the DualShock 4, it is evident that for DualSense in this respect essentially older components and parts have been used that do not quite align with Sony’s vision of extremely cutting-edge technology, which – among other things – the rest of the console design would seem to reflect.
Testing this in a real world scenario iFixIt used Call of Duty: Warzone, a game with a high degree of constant stress on the sticks, to argue that this would result in just 417 hours of play before the stress thresholds set by ALPS – the company that makes these components – were exceeded: of course, this will vary depending on the type of games being played.
On average, iFixIt believes that using the PS5 DualSense controller for two hours a day will see the analog stick components exceed their expected lifespan after just seven months (since the console was released last November, the identification of these problems by users is expected to increase around May).
According to the site, the root cause of the problem is essentially the result of wear on the potentiometer, but invasive dust also contributes to worsening the situation.
