Sony Is Getting Sued Over PS5 DualSense Drifting Issues

One week after soliciting PS5 owners' feedback on whether they've experienced stick drift with their PS5's DualSense controllers, a New York law firm has moved forward with a class-action suit against Sony.

Filed by Chimicles Schwartz Kriner & Donaldson-Smith LLP on behalf of those affected by faulty PS5 DualSense controller--with plaintiff Lmarc Turner--the lawsuit claims the PS5's controller is "defective" and that its drifting "significantly interferes with gameplay and thus compromises the DualSense Controller's core functionality."

The lawsuit goes on to say that Sony is aware of these complaints, especially because they also occurred on the PS4's DualShock 4--we personally had a controller that experienced this issue. Despite this, according to the lawsuit filing, Sony isn't doing enough to address the problem, with customers having to pay for the shipping to get the controller back to Sony and long wait times and troubleshooting steps affecting their ability to get back to playing games.

The full text of the lawsuit is quite entertaining, as it contains screenshots from sites like Twitter and Reddit where customers complained about the issues they were experiencing. It isn't really clear how widespread the issue really is. However, it looks like there are a few possible factors, such as the internal potentiometers and springs, that could be causing the drifting.

"Based upon the allegations in the lawsuit and scores of internet complaints online about drifting in prior models of the DualShock Controller, Sony cannot dispute that it had presale knowledge of the Drifting Defect in the DualSense Controller," the text adds.

That may be tough to prove, given how large a revision the DualSense is compared to previous PlayStation controller designs. The suit calls for a recall or replacements program for those who purchased the controller already, as well as "compensatory damages" related to "overpayment" on the controller.

This isn't the first lawsuit this particular firm has filed related to controller drift. It previously filed a class-action suit against Nintendo for the very same issue. This lawsuit was moved to arbitration, though the court wouldn't dismiss it outright.