DualShock 4 will offer some sort of basic PC functionality

PC owners will be able to connect the PS4’s DualShock 4 controller to their machine and enjoy basic functionality”.

That’s according to Sony Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida who, as spotted by Joystiq, confirmed on Twitter over the weekend that the controller will work when connected to a PC – something DualShock 3 was not able to manage without a certain amount of effort.

It doesn’t seem that its advanced features such as the touchscreen will work, however, with Yoshida describing its out-of-the-box PC functionality as basic”.

Joystiq rightly asks whether the joypad will feature the XInput API – that’s the tech that makes PCs recognise lots of third party joypads as Xbox 360 controllers. The fact that it works suggests that maybe that is the case.

Sony could of course choose to release drivers for the device at a later stage that would enable the controller’s more advanced features – and perhaps its aspirations to make PlayStation games playable across a range of devices will increase the likelihood of this happening.