Sony went vaporwave. At PlayStation’s State of Play event on September 3, the company announced two special “GTA 6”-themed PlayStation 5 DualSense controllers, and they look exactly like what Vice City would do to a piece of plastic.
Black and white bodies. Blue, purple and pink gradients running across them. It’s the color palette of Vice City, the “Grand Theft Auto” city built heavily on real-world Miami, transplanted onto a gamepad.
Both are priced at $84.99. A standard DualSense retails for $74, so you’re paying about 11 bucks for the paint job.
The dates you actually need
Pre-orders open September 10 in the United States at 10 a.m. Eastern. The official launch is November 19, the same day as the game.
PlayStation’s blog noted the controllers will only be offered in “limited quantities”. It didn’t specify an actual number, which is its own kind of answer.
For a game this anticipated, it’s reasonable to expect some of that hype bleeds into the hardware around it. Whether that means a few thousand units or a warehouse full, Sony isn’t saying.
Don’t expect extra hardware for the extra money
These are standard DualSense controllers. No special features. Nothing like the DualSense Edge, which gives you more mappable buttons and customizable stick modules.
So the $84.99 buys you the finish and the branding, and that’s it. To be fair, that price is in line with other game-specific special edition controllers, so Sony isn’t gouging anyone here. It’s just doing the usual thing.
The wait behind all of this
“Grand Theft Auto 5” came out in 2013. That’s the most recent installment in the franchise, which tells you everything about why the gaming world is ready for “Grand Theft Auto 6.”
Details have been trickling out from places like Netflix as launch gets closer, alongside news about the special edition hardware attached to it.
“Grand Theft Auto 6” is likely going to be big, expensive, loud and quite the spectacle, so an ostentatious pair of controllers fits the assignment. When everyone you know disappears from work for a few days in November, they’ll have something in their hands that matches.
