Sony Mobile’s recent Xperia X Concept firmware introduced the PlayStation Remote Play application, after much request from the community. However, whilst the application was once again supported, Sony said that there was no support for the DUALSHOCK 4 PlayStation 4 controller.
If you are wondering why Sony did not include DS4 support, you can check out the comment below from the Sony developers. Basically, to support the controller requires a number of changes to code that is frequently changed in the AOSP. This means that if it were supported, new releases would take longer, which kind of goes against the principle of the Concept firmware. The good news is that Sony are looking for a workaround, but this may take some time.
Sony explains why DUALSHOCK 4 support on Concept firmware is tricky
“The DS4 is a complex device with both analog and digital joysticks, buttons, a touch pad, accelerometers, gyroscope as well as vibrators for force feedback. To work correctly it requires some extensions to the Gamepad device in the Bluetooth’s HID (Human Interface Device) profile, both in the drivers as well as in the BT stack. This implementation is also performance sensitive, as lag or latency will kill the gaming experience.
“The changes to support DS4 are done in code that is quite frequently changed in AOSP by Google and others, which means that if included they would require a fair bit of attention each time we want to give you a new release. As one of the core principles of the Concept is the ability to update your software quickly, we have decided not to include DS4 support yet. We are looking at these changes to see if we can’t write them in a better way that would require less maintenance.”
