Players who have already picked up their DualSense for PlayStation 5 have discovered that they work perfectly well with the PlayStation 3, but not the PlayStation 4. It's an ironic situation considering that the PlayStation 5 supports PlayStation 4 games, but no one seems to be able to reproduce the unique setup of the PlayStation 3. The console's notorious Cell microprocessor made games hard to develop for at the time and makes the hardware tough to work with nowadays.
From packing in a full PlayStation 2 in its innards to running Linux, the original PlayStation 3 wanted to be compatible with as much of a player's technology as possible. Part of that was stripped away as Sony created smaller and more budget-conscious editions of the console, but another part of that was baked into the PS3's core. At a time when the Xbox was on top and trying to sell everything proprietary, the PlayStation 3 had far-reaching Bluetooth support, letting players pull any old gadget out of storage as long as it supported the wireless tech. This also leads to some interesting modern scenarios like the ones playing out in recent times with bored DualSense owners.
Richard Masucci of ReviewTechUSA posted a tweet asking why the DualSense controller would work perfectly on a PlayStation 3, but not a PlayStation 4. Not too long afterward, user LegacyZeroZ responded with the simple answer. The PlayStation 3's Bluetooth support is expansive enough that it accepts controllers of all sorts as long as they also have Bluetooth. The PlayStation 4 was designed to be more restrictive, with only certain games supporting controllers other than the official Sony offerings. The DualSense is a Bluetooth controller, so the PS3 is happy to let it connect for sessions of last-gen games like Killzone.
In this one way, the PlayStation 3 really was ahead of its time. It wouldn't be until the tail-end of the Xbox One years that Microsoft would switch off of its own unique wireless signal and embrace Bluetooth technology. Funnily enough, it was after Microsoft found itself in the same situation as Sony in the PlayStation 3 days, showcasing that the company in the lead always seems to want to grab at more control than the underdog. Eventually, technology overrides any of these squabbles by making simple things standard and dragging technology companies away from their old moneymakers.
So, while the PlayStation 5 DualSense does work well with the PlayStation 3, gamers who try to use it on the decades-old hardware won't get any of the true benefits of the newfangled gamepad. Early previews have suggested that the haptic feedback and resistant triggers could be a gamechanger if developers take advantage of them. However, since Xbox and PC users don't have access to the tech, it's more likely that it falls by the wayside alongside Kinect voice commands and platform-specific second screen experiences. Gimmicks are all well and good, but it will take a lot to enforce change on the rest of the industry.
Source: Richard Masucci/Twitter