The PlayStation 5‘s DualSense controller may not work with games on the PlayStation 4, but it can in a roundabout way play Xbox Game Pass games. A new video shared this week that showed a DualSense controller being unboxed proved as much by showing the DualSense controlling an Xbox One game on an Android device via Microsoft’s xCloud technology. It’s an innovative way of using the controller that sounds like it’ll make the device more versatile than being used solely with the PlayStation 5 should people prefer the feel of it over other controllers when they experience it.
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YouTuber and gaming content creator Austin Evans shared the video below on Friday to show the DualSense controller being unboxed. After marveling at the controller for a bit, we see what happens when Evans tries to hook it up to different devices. An Xbox Series X will charge the device, but you can’t do anything beyond that since the console apparently thinks you’re trying to plug in an Xbox One controller. Connecting it to a PlayStation 4 yields a similar response where the console sort of recognizes the device and its microphone, but functionality is limited from what’s shown.
But once Evans plugged it into a PC, it was discovered that the DualSense can indeed function as a PC controller with the proper settings. It also successfully paired with an Android device, and through that, we come full circle back to the Xbox. By pairing the controller with the Android device and accessing Xbox Game Pass games via Microsoft’s xCloud, he’s able to play Xbox games with the PlayStation 5’s controller.
Functionality is of course limited there as well, though not nearly as much as trying to plug it into an incompatible console. Things like the haptic feedback and vibrations and adaptive triggers don’t work when pairing the controller in this way, so you’ll miss out on those features should you choose to use the controller like this. Those features won’t be present in every game anyway, but once people get the chance to experience the games that do support the DualSense’s features, the effects will likely be very noticeable when they’re absent.
We’ve seen the DualSense appearing in the wild more often lately as the controller arrives at different retail locations. The DualSense is also among those devices that’ll be sent out early ahead of the PlayStation 5 launch, so it won’t be too long before people are able to go hands-on with these themselves.
