One of my first thoughts upon seeing the futuristic armoured look of the PlayStation 5’s Dualsense controller was, “Man, I bet that’s going to look awesome with a custom paint job.” Indulging my pink and black obsession, the painting pros at Colorware have confirmed my hypothesis.
Thanks to the touchpad and the solid grips that wrap around from behind, the Dualsense looks like something that fell off a sleek, futuristic android. The face of the controller has four distinct zones: left grip, right grip, touchpad, and the bit where the analogue sticks are housed, which I promised myself I would not call the crotch, but now that I see it in light pink, it looks like a crotch. As a former art student and appreciator of customised gaming hardware, I look at the Dualsense and I see endless potential.
So does Colorware, which makes sense as it’s a company that makes money making electronics look unique and pretty. As soon as the Dualsense was a thing people could buy, Colorware dropped an eye-catching banner demonstrating how much better the controller could look.
It was the third from the left model that grabbed my attention at first. That’s old-school Silver Centurion Iron Man right there. Soon I was at the Colorware controller customisation widget, going through countless combinations of body, middle, buttons, and trackpad colours.
The options available are a little overwhelming: rows of solid and metallic colours, all available in matte or gloss finishes. It took me a couple hours to finally settle on a design. I went with gloss black for the body. The crotch is cotton candy gloss. The buttons are blush matte, and the touchpad is blush gloss.
Here is the finished design:
And here is the controller, in my hands a few weeks after my order was placed. The buttons and touchpad are a bit less bubblegum-coloured than I expected, but I like them better this way.
The whole thing cost around $US130 ($168) plus shipping, which isn’t bad considering the Dualsense on its own is $90, so that’s an additional $80 for a controller that’s relatively unique. For another $US20 ($26) Colorware will engrave a message on the touchpad, but this pink and black beauty needed no words.
The only downside of customising the Dualsense controller is you can’t really do much with that damn PlayStation logo button. No matter what colour you paint it, it’s still what it is.
We’ll just have to make the rest of the controller so pretty that you barely notice the logo. It’s easy, thanks to the designers who made the Dualsense such a sexy robot beast to begin with.
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