A new patent discovered by German website Techtastic, however, suggests the Dualshock 5 (or whatever it ends up being called) could signify a huge shift to cloud gaming for the PS4's upcoming successor, revealing a controller that connects directly over the internet, and not to the PS5 itself.
The patent, filed a few weeks ago by Sony through the World Intellectual Property Organization, describes a "a controller device for user interactivity with a server of a cloud gaming system is provided", accompanied by a sketch showing the user connecting their controller to the console remotely through an online server.
"The controller device communicates directly to an access device for connection to a network that connects the controller device to the server without connecting to a client device", reads the patent, "wherein the server receives and processes the inputs to render gameplay video that is transmitted over the network for rendering to a display device that is local to the controller device."
Gamesradar
This could be the PS5 controller, a streaming device or amount to nothing at all. It's still intriguing that Sony is interested in exploring this path (the same as Stadia).