PlayStation 5's DualSense controller features haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, which take immersion even further by providing feedback for each movement you make. Through haptic feedback, players receive different vibrations based on in-game environments or recoil of different guns. While the adaptive trigger will generate pressure when you do certain actions such as hitting a brake or pulling a trigger. After developers started using this feature, it brought an entirely different form of immersion. Enough to impress Xbox themselves, as the company is also looking to implement the same technology in its own controller.
Speaking to the Kinda Funny Gamescast, Phil Spencer, the Executive Vice President of Gaming at Microsoft, said they're impressed by Sony's innovation with DualSense. He also expressed his desire to implement those features on Xbox Series X's controller. Spencer said, “I think Sony’s done a nice job with their controller and we kind of look at some of that and [think] there are things that we should go do.” Spencer also said Xbox has no current plans for VR in Xbox although Sony is already working on next-generation VR for PlayStation 5.
This isn't the first time Xbox has complimented PlayStation. In a leaked internal document, Xbox shared their opinion on PlayStation's critically acclaimed title, The Last of Us Part II. Xbox described The Last of Us Part II as, “absolutely best-in-class in basically every area... significantly ahead of anything that other teams have been producing on console and PC”.
Xbox didn't make many major changes to their new controller compared to the previous iteration. PlayStation 5's DualSense haptic feedback and adaptive triggers received very positive feedback from everyone, so it was logical for Xbox to think about using it. While there is no official announcement for the next version of the controller, we eagerly await Xbox's response to DualSense.