We’ve all been in that one multiplayer lobby you’ve been in where some guy is arguing with somebody else their home, or blasting music loud enough to give the game a whole new soundrtack. Those issues are about to get a lot more prevalent on the PS5 thanks to the DualSense microphone. In order to prevent a potentially embarrassing situation, or just to avoid annoying your lobbies, don’t forget to mute your DualSense mic when you play multiplayer games on the PS5.
Sony’s new DualSense controller for the PS5 comes with a built in mic. It’s a decent microphone, and seems to be solution for the pack-in earpiece that came with the PS4. However, this now means that every single PS5 player has a hot mic in their hands when playing a multiplayer game online. Instead of the inattentive dude who can’t be bothered to mute his headset mic, you have every PS5 player with a mic defaulted to “on,” filling multiplayer lobbies with whatever sounds are happening in their living rooms. At best, it’s annoying. At worst, it’s awkward and embarrassing.
I discovered this issue earlier today while in a multiplayer preview session with other press and PR on my PS5. I jumped into matchmaking, set my DualSense down, and began having a conversation with my wife, one that I thought was taking place within the privacy of my own home. Frantic messages and calls to my phone from a friend urged me to mute my mic because the lobby could apparently hear our entire conversation. Fortunately it was nothing too embarrassing or private, and there weren’t all that many people in the lobby, but it was an issue that still happened despite me even calling it out in my PS5 review as a possible problem.
There is a big, big, big problem with the DualSense built in mic.
Every single PlayStation 5 controller now has a hot mic that is on by default.
This means that unless you manually mute it, you are broadcasting your living room for everyone in a multiplayer lobby to hear.
— Chandler Wood (@FinchStrife) November 11, 2020
So if it can even catch me, someone who was quite aware of the potential issues the DualSense mic posed, off guard, then it’s almost certain the DualSense mic is going to be the bane of every single PS5 multiplayer lobby in existence. People have a hard time remembering to mute a mic they are actually aware of on a headset, and now you’ve put a hot mic into the hands of every PS5 player whether they have a headset connected or not.
I believe it also happened with other players whose voices I could hear during matches too. At least, I don’t think they had intended to publicly call the rest of the team some of the names they were saying. I worry about the omnipresence of the microphone as it relates to toxicity in online matches. Those exasperated, under-the-breath, in-home curses at the terrible healer or guy not playing the objective are about to get a lot more public.
Fortunately the issue is easily remedied with a quick tap of the small button below the PS button. It will light up orange to indicate that the mic is muted (and even works as a quick mute for headset mics too). This is just a small PSA and something to be aware of. Don’t forget that the DualSense controller has a mic built into it, and please, for the sanity of multiplayer lobbies everywhere, please remember to tap that mute button.
