A U.S. law firm has filed a class action lawsuit against Sony alleging “drifting” in its DualSense controller for the PlayStation 5.
On its website, Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith LLP (CSK&D) has set up a form that PS5 owners can fill out to report instances of drift, which occurs when the controller registers input even when the user hasn’t touched it.
It’s unclear how widespread the issue actually is, but at least a handful of reports of the issue have come out so far over the past several days. Searching “DualSense drift” on Twitter also yields a variety of tweets from users of the controller saying they’ve experienced drift.
“CSK&D is investigating a potential class action based upon reports that Sony PS5 DualSense controllers for the PlayStation 5 console can experience drift issues and/or fail prematurely,” reads CSK&D’s explanation of the issue. “Specifically, it is reported that the joystick on certain PS5 DualSense controllers will automatically register movement when the joystick is not being controlled and interfere with gameplay.”
It’s important to note that CSK&D is the same firm that filed a lawsuit against Nintendo in 2019 over reports of drifting in the Switch’s Joy-Con controllers. However, Nintendo has since responded by saying drifting “isn’t a real problem or hasn’t caused anyone any inconvenience.”
Sony hasn’t yet publicly addressed CSK&D’s lawsuit regarding DualSense drift, but hopefully, the company doesn’t try to downplay the issue as Nintendo did.
It’s important to note, however, that the installed base for the PS5 is significantly smaller than the Switch’s at this point, given that it released nearly four years later. Specifically, around 4.5 million PS5 consoles have been sold to date, versus about 80 million Switches.
