Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve asked you to tell us whether or not your DualShock 4 controllers were suffering from wear and tear, even splitting on the edges of the analogue sticks. In the end, our poll gave some quite surprising results.

Of over 6,000 votes, 37.52% of respondents reported some form of wear and tear, with 9.95% suffering from the rubber splitting. Taking those results at face value would indicate that millions of controllers are affected.

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We reached out to Sony for a statement on the issue, and their response to our figures was as follows:

A very small number of users have reported to us that the rubber surface of their Wireless Controller DUALSHOCK®4’s analogue sticks have torn. Although the rubber material of the analogue sticks fulfils our quality assurance standard, we will inspect individual DUALSHOCK®4 controllers experiencing this symptom, and will replace them with new ones for free as long as they are within the warranty.

While we would disagree that practically 1 in 10 controllers is a small number, even taking into account the potential variance of a polling sample, the message here is that if your DualShock 4 suffers from this then you need to exercise your warranty rights. Getting in contact with the retailer you purchased from and/or Sony will enable you to get a free replacement.

For now, it’s business as usual and this is being dealt with on a case-by-case basis. We’ll just have to wait and see whether it develops any further.