xbox one liquid metal controller not calibrating

The Japanese company (formerly Alps Electric, now Alps Alpine) specializes in input and sensing devices. The joystick modules themselves are manufactured by Alps-a name familiar to anyone who has fallen down a deep keyboard hole, or struggled with a trackpad driver. Unlike the buttons and analog directional pad, the DualSense thumbsticks sit directly atop the main controller board. We gave a detailed blow-by-blow of the controller disassembly in our PS5 teardown, so here we’ll zoom right in on the joysticks. Let’s head inside a DualSense controller to see what is failing, and how. It’s predictable they would fail, which makes you wonder if it’s a willful cost-saving calculation on the console makers’ part to not offer more reliable, or replaceable, sticks. Joysticks have a known life expectancy-it’s listed right in a product sheet from the manufacturer. Sony isn’t the only company to use off-the-shelf joystick modules, but, like Microsoft, they’ve made it difficult to repair this consumable component. In some ways they’re actually less sophisticated than certain joystick technology available in the late 1990s. Deeper inside, however, are joystick modules that could have been held over from when Seinfeld was on the air. It has new adaptive triggers and advanced haptic feedback. Like the PlayStation 5 itself, the DualSense controller feels like a device brought back from the near-future. And now we’ve investigated those issues in excruciating detail. Because for all its exciting new tech, the DualSense uses off-the-shelf joystick hardware with a long history of predictable, preventable issues. Who could have seen this coming? Well, as it turns out, everyone.

Mere months have passed since the PS5’s hotly anticipated launch, and already there’s a class-action lawsuit brewing over joystick drift on Sony’s high-tech DualSense controllers. Words are great (says this author!), but you can see exactly how potentiometers work in this video joystick drift explainer.

Xbox one liquid metal controller not calibrating