Sony’s hype train has reached ridiculously absurd levels. Not in the way Sony would love, with everyone absolutely frothing with excitement over their upcoming next generational launch. No, it is in the worst way, where people are just making the most absurd claims. It was one thing when Tim Sweeney wrongfully claimed Sony’s SSDs were going to be some of the most advanced on the market. A statement that not only was untrue as other companies have more advanced SSDs available. As Sony’s matches high mid-level performance, the overall standard of the SSD market will eclipse Sony’s technology within a year or two of the console’s life cycle.

Gaming Route brings attention to a claim implied during the Play, Watch, Listen Podcast (see 1:20:00 mark for the relevant section). Where during a conversation between developer Mike Bithell, voice actor, and ever open-minded Troy Baker, along with composer Austin Wintory over the Unreal 5, the statement/implication that the PS5’s controller would allow players to feel the rain was made.

In defense of Gaming Route, it does sound as if Bithell’s implication is the haptic feedback will allow you to feel the rain.

Except that’s not how Haptic Feedback works. Haptic Feedback is essentially a rumble functionality that can produce various degrees of vibration. Not at pinpoint locations along the controller, just across the controller. That is not something that can simulate the impact of rainfall. Outright this implication is a lie that should have you questioning if they’ve ever even experienced rain.

Now what Bithell probably intended was the haptic feedback allows for Sony to deliver more complex vibrational simulations from the controllers. Allowing for a more nuanced immersion into the experience when compared to rumble functionality in current generation controllers. Concerning rain, developers can make light, subtle vibrations to give the impression of the reverberation of the impact of a downpour in the environment.

As potentially cool as that may be, Sony’s problem is virtually no one is going to utilize it. Akin to how few developers use the rumble function. The reality is, it costs money to develop vibration functions. If neither the Switch, PC, or Series X is going to be able to utilize it, companies aren’t going to invest resources into its implementation unless Sony pays them to do so.

When most companies aren’t utilizing the function, the components serve only to increase the cost of the Playstation 5. Most people would rather just have a cheaper controller than have a feature only a handful of games across the generation’s lifespan are going to utilize.