The imminent arrival of Sony’s PlayStation 4 and all associated accessories is already reason enough to be excited as we head into the vastly important holiday shopping season. Getting our hands on and experiencing the PS4 – as well as Microsoft’s Xbox One we might add – will be one of the highlights of the year as far as anticipated technology goes, but it’s always great to find out that the hardware is capable of a little more than we first thought. In the case of Sony and the PlayStation 4 it seems that the accompanying DualShock 4 controller is actually compatible with a range of other platforms.
Sony has previously confirmed that a limited number of DualShock features would be compatible when the controller was used in conjunction with a Windows powered PC. That announcement is all well and good but Sony has pretty much left it there as far as information goes and have yet to actually give an insight on how far the compatibility will go. While we wait patiently for the corporate cogs to grind out that information the good news is that the DualShock 4 is also compatible with games running on Apple’s OS X platform.
A recent six-second Vine video published by Chris Gallizzi confirms that the basic required functionality works without issue on a Mac. The uploaded Vine shows Gallizzi using Sony’s new DualShock 4 to play the Hotline Miami game on an OS X powered iMac. Although the Vine only allows videos that are six seconds in length, everything that we see in that short time looks responsive and extremely functional from a control perspective.
Although the new DualShock 4 controller along with the PS4 won’t release until later next month, but it clearly shows that Sony is serious about extending the device’s functionality beyond their own platform. It’s definitely great news for any casual or hardcore gamer who likes to get involved in PC based gaming as well. However, it will be extremely interesting to see if Sony has any immediate plans on offering support for the advanced functionality built into the controller such as the touchpad and the ability to interact with the hardware lighting system.
Sony’s head of Computer Entertainment Shuhei Yoshida has already publicly stated that consumers will need to wait for “post-launch field reports” to see what is actually functional on other platforms. That doesn’t bode well for a pre-release information leaks, but it’s always good to know that Sony is thinking about other platforms.
(via: Kotaku)
You may also like to check out:
You can follow us on Twitter, add us to your circle on Google+ or like our Facebook page to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google, Apple and the web.
