DualShock 4 Light Bar Colors Indicate More Than You Think


Those DualShock 4 light bar colors have implications you probably weren’t aware of. Sony had plans for the light on the front of the controller beyond just integration with various games and charge status.

Several gamers who bought the PlayStation 4 cited that the light bar on the front of the DualShock 4 was the worst part of its design, reflecting off the TV and being generally distracting. Some games have made the light useful, such as Thief‘s visibility indicator and a low health warning on other titles, but Sony wasn’t ready to announce why the light was there. The DualShock 4 light bar mystery was maddening for everybody involved.

Now we know, and the implications might bring out a Matrix-style “Whoa.”

The front light DualShock 4 colors were meant to interact with Project Morpheus. Sony’s answer to the Oculus Rift was the reason behind that feature of the PlayStation 4 controller that gamers had become annoyed with. Sony couldn’t tell us earlier and it was a bit of a headache trying not to explain why it was there.

That is why you can’t turn the light off completely and workarounds were necessary to change the color. The light helps track your movements when you’re wearing the VR headset, an innovation that could easily give Sony a bigger edge in the Xbox One vs PS4 console war, if Microsoft isn’t about to reveal something similar after months of silence.

Sony’s Senior Designer Jed Ashforth revealed this purpose for the light in an interview with a gaming new site when he said:

“The tracking light … it was our department that said we need that on. It was for tracking for VR. And when all these things were coming out six months ago and everyone was going ‘it’s reflecting in my TV,’ we were going ‘oh no’ because we couldn’t tell anyone what it was for.”

Now that we know Sony planned the light bar colors on the DualShock 4 to support a virtual reality gaming device, it might not bother us as much. Are you excited about Sony’s upcoming Project Morpheus?

[image via Giantbomb]

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