Back to the Center – PS5 controllers

This is a follow-up to Drifting to the left, a post on problems I had with my PS5 controllers.

To summarize that post, I received a controller with my PS5 that I purchased in March 2021.

A standard PS5 DualSense controller. For the purpose of this article, let’s call this “the white one.”

By July 2023, I noticed a problem with the left joystick. I purchased a replacement controller.

The replacement for the white one. Let’s call this “the black one.”

By October 2024, the black one had the same problem. I did some research. I learned that most game controllers (not just the PS5) used potentiometer-based joysticks that were prone to problems like the ones I had. One solution was to replace each joystick with ones based on the Hall effect.

Since I seemed to be regularly going through controllers, even for such low-intensity games like Baldur’s Gate 3, I decided to get a PS5 controller with the superior joysticks. Such controllers are not sold off-the-shelf. You have to purchase them custom-built.

(In my original post, I discuss installing the upgrade myself and why I chose not to do it.)

I purchased a regular PS5 controller to tide me over while waiting for the upgraded controllers to arrive.

The last “regular” PS5 DualSense controller that I plan to buy. Let’s call this… wait for it… “the silver one.”

Disclaimer of foolishness

Before I discuss the merits of these more advanced controllers, I have to acknowledge:

I’m not the target audience for these types of controller upgrades. I play turned-based games like BG3, or games that don’t require precise timing of keypresses. (A game that does will likely get a negative review from me, as if my opinion matters.)

These controllers are typically meant for skilled gamers for whom split-second timing means the difference between winning and losing in a competition. Pros need controllers with dedicated buttons or widgets that suit their twitch reflexes. They may want a controller with visual appeal, if (for example) they play in public at a convention, or are being broadcast on Twitch.

By entering the world of custom controllers, I was effectively purchasing a detailed Ferrari with racing stripes to make a weekly trip to a grocery store.

Anything I say below has to be understood in that context.

For all I know, my experiences (both positive and negative) may be the norm in the professional gaming world, and accepted in the intended marketplace for these kinds of game controllers.

If you somehow came to this post and you’re looking for a comparison of trigger timings or stability for Hall-effect versus TMR joysticks, you’ve come to the wrong place. I know how to run a gamepad tester, but I don’t know how to interpret the results, nor use the results to compare the controllers.

As far as performance is concerned, I can tell you that in BG3 I can walk Astarion from one end of a camp to the other without drifting, go into hiding, and pickpocket Shadowheart. The controllers work. I can’t evaluate them further.

With that said…

HYPR controllers

I’m going to go over the custom controllers in the sequence that I ordered them, not in the order I received them.

Why do I make this distinction?

As I noted in the original post, I ordered a custom controller from HYPR. Then (too late!) I did a web search on them, discovered almost uniformly negative reviews, and tried to cancel the order.

I turns out that I waited a bit too long. I placed the order on October 18, and tried to cancel it on October 24. They wrote back on October 25, to inform me that their refund policy said that orders could only be cancelled within 48 hours of placing the order.

When I checked the refund policy for this blog post, I see that the cancellation window is now 24 hours.

The main criticism I saw about HYPR is their long time to fulfill orders. When I placed the order, their site said it would take 3-5 weeks to get ready. I next heard from them on March 7, closer to six months.

Their March 7 email said that the order had been shipped. I didn’t receive it until March 26 (yesterday as I type this), about three weeks later.

OK, we’re past the negative aspects. Let’s look at the positive.

When they sent me the “ready to ship” email, they also sent a movie of the controller test.

I have to acknowledge that no other company I’ve ever dealt with has done something like this.

When I placed the order for the HYPR controller, they displayed a preview of what the finished product would look like:

I chose the colors of all the components of this controller: British Green front plate and trim, gray joysticks, purple glide rings; everything else is matte black. I could have picked wild garish color combinations if I wished. The blue gauges around the joysticks aren’t in the finished product; they indicate that the joysticks are based on TMR electromagnetic joysticks.

This is what arrived yesterday:

The colors aren’t a perfect match with the preview, but:

I did not expect a perfect color match. Color agreement is hard to do; that’s why professional graphics departments hire someone solely to be in charge of color.

There’s an example of the difficulty in this blog post: All the pictures with an orange background were taken on top of the same placemat, within minutes of each other; any color variation between my photos is due to the vagaries of my iPhone’s photo-processing software.

I like the colors that I got better than the ones in the preview.

The controller came in a well-padded case with a magnetic clasp:

Of course, there is the critical issue of feline approval:

Shuba considers the HYPR controller to be the favorite of gamers with no opposable thumbs.

To balance out the bias, Shuba also favored the white one (after an upgrade as discussed below):

As I noted above, I can’t speak to the performance characteristics of the HYPR controller. All I can say is that if you’re looking for a tricked-out fully-tested controller and you’re willing to accept an extremely long delay, HYPR delivers… eventually.

TonkaModz

Rewind back to October 24. I did some research (something I should have done before I started throwing money around) and found TonkaModz.

Their comments on Reddit give the impression that they’re a small shop, so I knew better than to expect rapid service. Their chief virtue is that, while they don’t “trick out” controllers the way HYPR does, they can perform joystick upgrades on any commercial controller, or install a joystick upgrade on a controller that you send them.

Sony offers a higher-end controller for their PS5 called the DualSense Edge. Its chief feature that it includes additional control buttons that you can program to have any functions you want. It’s also much easier to replace the joystick modules if needed; they just slide out (the basic DualSense controller requires soldering skills to do the same thing).

(I’ll get ahead of myself: I have not yet found a use for any of the extra buttons or the programmability features. Once again I dump money into a #ZerothWorldProblem.)

I ordered the DualSense Edge through TonkaModz, with their additional Hall-effect joystick upgrade. This time I did my research, and verified that TonkaModz had a good reputation.

I placed the order on October 24, they shipped it on October 26, I received it on November 7. I didn’t expect rapid service, but I got it. No complaints there!

Here’s the DualSense controller I received:

While TonkaModz doesn’t offer a full range of colored parts, they do offer colored replacement knobs for the joysticks. I picked purple, my favorite color.

They ship the controller in the original box for Sony’s DualSense Edge controller. It comes with a professional case:

This is a hard-shell heavy-duty case. It brought home to me that these controllers are meant for serious gamers, ones who are likely to travel to play a game with their own custom controller in a case slung over their shoulder.

The DualSense Edge controller in its case. It’s probably not fair to compare this with the HYPR controller case, since this case has the full manufacturing might of Sony behind it. The case comes with an extra USB cable for charging, and alternate joystick caps for precision gamers. The empty section in the case is for a spare joystick module, if you’re worried about needing to replace one in the midst of a gaming session.

TonkaModz 2: Electric Boogaloo

Once the DualSense Edge controller arrived from TonkaModz, I had no need of the silver controller anymore. I gave it to Real Angela so she could begin her own journey into BG3.

I still had the white and black controllers, each with a malfunctioning joystick. They sat on my coffee table for months. I planned to take them to Best Buy to be recycled, but somehow I never got around to it.

Finally, I did something stupid: I sent both of the controllers to TonkaModz to have their joysticks upgraded to the Hall-effect models.

This was silly. The cost of the upgrade was close to the price of a new PS5 controller (though it would have had the weaker potentiometer joysticks). Besides, I didn’t need any extra controllers; while I do have occasional visitors, none of them come to play on the PS5 with me.

Somehow the thought of dumping extra plastic and electronics into a landfill bothered me more than spending the money.

Anyway, I placed the order and boxed up the controllers on January 3, arranging for USPS to pick them up the next day. TonkaModz took a month (I was in no hurry anyway) and shipped the controllers back on February 3. They arrived on February 11.

If I had to guess, I’d say that the reason the DualSense Edge upgrade took only a week is that all it took was to slide out the joystick modules and slide in new ones. To modify my DualSense controllers required soldering and the handling of small parts. Again, no complaints.

Now I have four PS5 controllers, all with upgraded joysticks.

Clockwise from upper left: the white one, the black one, the HYPR controller, the DualSense Edge.

What now?

I definitely have two more PS5 controllers than I’ll ever use.

My plan was to give the upgraded white and black controllers to any of my friends who wanted one. So far, none of them have. However, I haven’t been too aggressive about offering them either.

I keep one of the PS5 controllers attached to my desktop Mac to play BG3 with Real Angela. So it’s not going to waste.

The lessons to be learned: Do your research, resist temptation, and stay out of the experts’ playground unless you know what you’re doing.