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Consoles in 2026 are in a fantastic place, as long as you ignore all the raging price increases hitting Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2, and the PlayStation 5. Accessories have never been better, with some third-party controllers now no longer low-quality, weird MadCatz budget PS2 controller your friend had to use. Better yet, there are certain companies completely outdoing Sony in some cases, like Dbrand and its huge range of customization options.

The PlayStation 5 has a huge amount of different accessories that are official, first-party-made products. However, sometimes you can either get a better deal elsewhere or an infinitely better option by shopping around. Why wait for the FlexStrike arcade stick to launch, when there's a half a dozen other options already on shelves? Sony's PlayStation products are of exceptional quality, but not always the most fully featured.

Price hikes might be battering the PS5 right now, but for all owners, these are our top recommended brands to look into for accessories. Controllers, headsets, and more are all covered below, including alternatives for the PlayStation Portal, Sony's dedicated streaming handheld. Rather than settle for Sony's options, take a gander at these.

With no official PlayStation controller on the menu, GameSir might be an odd choice to put here. However, its mobile controllers will easily turn your phone into a much cheaper, more robust PlayStation Portal. Sony's dedicated streaming handheld can't do much other than stream, making it a potentially costly investment for some players.

By opting for a GameSir X5s mobile controller or G8 Plus — or even one of the many others available — you'll not only nab a fantastic option for mobile gaming, but a far more comfortable experience than a controller on a hinged holster. GameSir's dedicated mobile controllers can run from $49 to around $110, but you won't need the best available. Remember, streaming a game isn't anything like playing natively, so going for all the bells and whistles won't make much of a difference considering latency.

Controllers like this are also excellent as alternatives for other consoles you own, too. The X5s, for instance, can be a great cheaper controller for the Switch 2. Sony also recommends the Backbone One, but this starts at $99.99, so it is considerably more expensive for something that doesn't even have Hall Effect sticks.

Razer is expensive, and there's a good reason behind that. A vast majority of the PlayStation products it provides bring a certain quality to them, not found on many other brands. Predominantly known for its PC gear, Razer has been making great alternatives to Sony's first-party hardware. Controllers and headsets are premium here, but you will have to bite the bullet on the price to get them.

Razer's efforts at producing high-quality controllers have been received well. This, of course, has translated to the relatively new Raiju V3 Pro, which GamesRadar gave a 4.5 out of five. For comparison, the official "pro" controller from Sony, the DualSense Edge, received much more middling scores, due to the lack of offerings on a $200 controller.

The company also sells a far sleeker charging dock for the DualSense controller, with its compact look making it look a tad tidier on the media center. Outside of that, the fighting game community also received Razer's Kitsune controller quite well, with users on the fight stick Reddit forum generally praising its build quality and controls. Razer's BlackShark V3 is also worth checking out, as it's an improved version of Razer's BlackShark V2.

Boistorus, and unafraid to "go there," Dbrand's selection of skins and plates for the PS5 trounces the offerings from Sony. While best known for its various phone and handheld products, the company has been beating Sony in terms of customization for quite some time. For those who need to shed a little height or width on the PS5's collar-like sideplates, the Darkplates 2.0 bring a rounded top and two additional air vents for keeping the system cool. They're a little pricey at around the $120 to $150 mark, depending on your console and options.

Skins are Dbrand's bread and butter, however. The company hasn't skimped on options, with the $50 skin for the middle of the console. This can then be accompanied by lightstrips, with the whole package setting you back around $40, depending on the sale. For PlayStation Portal users, no skins are available — as it's mostly just screen — but there's custom stick grips if Sony's official ones aren't cutting it.

One big problem with Dbrand is that, much like Sony, it has no options for the PlayStation 5 Pro. The now $900 system isn't included, with no real offering in sight. This might be due to how Sony manufactured the PS5 Pro plates by adding a new interlocking mechanism that doesn't support the older style.

One of the first major third-party PS5 controller brands out the door, the Victrix range has been a solid recommendation amongst hardware reviewers. The company was purchased by Turtle Beach in 2024, and the makers, PDP, haven't stopped there. In 2025, it refreshed its BFG line to become a modular controller, with various options available to customize the controller to your liking. The original BFG controller was also warmly received on launch, so if you stumble upon that at a discount, it's well worth the dip.

The brand also has a fight stick, Pro FS, and a leverless alternative (replaces the arcade stick with all buttons), the Pro KO. These have all been very well received, with Dexerto giving the fight stick a nine out of 10 in 2022, and the leverless model receiving 4.5 out of five from TechRadar in 2025. Sony will be releasing the FlexStrike, its own arcade stick, in the coming months, as it also launches Marvel fighting game, Tokon: Fighting Souls, but there's no price or release date attached as of this writing.

PDP has worked to ensure that the BFG controllers support most, if not all, features the PS5 can produce with the controller itself, like 3D audio. You won't get the neat trigger haptics, but the benefit here is that you can swap modules around to support different genres on the Reloaded controller. You also get the touch pad, so that you're never having to swap controllers for different games.