I'll get onto the Elite controller in a moment, as instead, it's far fairer to compare what comes in the box when you first pick up either system. For the PS4, that means the hulking DualShock 4, a fantastic piece of kit that saw Sony finally iterate on the ancient original, taking the core components of that design and bulking it up with the form factor of the 360's incredibly successful 'Controller S'. The DS4 is brilliant, but it does fall down considerably on things like the completely pointless Lightbar, and most cripplingly, the battery life. Where Microsoft not only manage to give you a bundled in controller that'll last you a good few days (alongside an optional Play n' Charge Kit to replace the battery pack altogether), Sony's offering will need charging after almost every single game session. Seriously, it's just that bad, and remains the only thing Sony drastically need to amend. Over on Xbox turf, Microsoft played it safe. Their innovation didn't come with developer tinker-toys like touch pads and optional lights, but in dedicated rumble pack placement (so the pad can vibrate in specific areas and to specific amounts), streamlining the general size of the thing to remove the bulky battery pack, heightening the Home button and ensuring the analogue rubber grips could coat an F1 car and survive in one piece. As for the Elite controller, right now it exists in the cultural psyche as a weirdly optional, overpriced extra. Custom button-mapping is a nice addition (that the PS4 already had), but can you honestly say you would benefit from mapping buttons to paddles you'd flick with your index fingers on the back of the pad? It's a strangely PC gamer-minded extra that ultimately doesn't offer anything meaningful to justify its asking price. Point goes to... PS4 They're both very robust and solid pieces of kit, both feeling very satisfying to hold for extended lengths of time, but the PS4 edges it from forward-thinking features providing developers with options in-game, vibration functions not feeling too intense, and one of its newer buttons being linked to a feature certain consumers will care about a great deal...
