Nearly three years on from its worldwide launch, the PS5 has had an impressive first phase of its life, whether it’s the games you’re talking about or just the user experience that the console provides. The latter has improved with time as well, with Sony having added a number of features and made a number of key improvements with updates over the last couple of years- though as always, there’s still room for improvement. Here, we’re going to talk about a few more quality-of-life features and improvements we’d like to see on the PS5.
QUICK RESUME
The one inarguable leg up that the Xbox user experience has over the PlayStation user experience is Quick Resume. Sure, the new consoles’ SSDs have already made it significantly less annoying and time-consuming to boot up games from scratch and hop right back into the action, but it still does eat up time that you’d rather spend playing. On Xbox, swapping between games is a completely frictionless experience at this time, given how well Quick Resume works, so hopefully Sony will do something similar with the PS5 in the not-too-distant future.
RUNNING PS5 GAMES STORED ON EXTERNAL SSDs
External SSD support for PS5 became available a couple of years ago, and though that’s obviously something that can come in very handy (especially if you don’t want to keep deleting and reinstalling games to make storage space), it doesn’t always function the way it should. For instance, though you can store native PS5 titles on an external SSD, the only way to play them is if you have them on your console’s internal storage, which means you still end up having to transfer games back and forth between internal and external storage. While we do understand the technical constraints that make this necessary, our hope is that Sony finds a way to make it possible to run native PS5 games stored on external SSDs, especially if you’re using those that have been officially recommended for the console.
MORE GENRE OPTIONS IN PS STORE SEARCHES
The PlayStation Store has seen consistent and significant improvements over the years, and in its current form on the PS5, it’s definitely a well-made storefront that’s easy to use and navigate. There are still ways it can improve though. In this area, in fact, it can take a few cues by what the Xbox Store is doing, especially with all of its genre and categorization options, both in the store itself and, more specifically, in the store’s search function. Of course, the PlayStation Store isn’t exactly barebones in this area the way something like, say, the Switch eShop is, but having more options and filters to make looking for games easier is something plenty of users will greatly appreciate.
HOME BUTTON FUNCTIONS
The transition from PS4 to PS5 has largely been a very smooth one, but one tiny little hiccup that a lot of us have stumbled over is how the home button functions. On PS4, pressing the button while playing a game would take you directly to the home screen, whereas doing that now pulls up the Control Center, which may or may not pause the game you’re playing (depending on what you’re playing). While you can still press and hold the button to go to the main home screen, it’d be nice to have the option to switch that and get the button to function the way it used to on PS4, or even to be able to turn off your console by simply holding the button.
SORTING FOLDERS
The PS5 not allowing users to create folders at launch was pretty ridiculous, considering the fact that it’s a pretty basic feature that the PS4 already implemented pretty well, and though folders did eventually get added to the PS5 UX in the form of gamelists, the way they’ve been implemented is rather eccentric, at least in some ways. Like not being able to change the order in which your gamelists appear- that seems like a very basic thing, to the extent that almost shouldn’t even deserve a mention, so not being able to do that is beyond baffling. Hopefully this will be one of many areas where Sony looks to make improvements in the future with PS5’s gamelists.
GIFTING/RECOMMENDING GAMES
Honestly, every storefront should have these features, and it’s a shame that so few of them do on consoles. Gifting and recommending games to people in your list of friends on the platform isn’t something the PlayStation Store currently allows on PS5, which, given how significantly Sony has improved the social experience on PlayStation consoles over the years, is honestly more than a little surprising. PlayStation fans have been requesting this feature for some time now, so hopefully Sony will end up relenting sooner rather than later.
DYNAMIC THEMES
One of the most heavily requested features on PS5, and one that we’re still surprised the console didn’t have at launch. Dynamic themes were a big hit on PS4, and that remained the case throughout the console’s lifecycle, so to see them not returning on the PS5 was quite a surprise. Of course, there is the fact that unlike PS4, on PS5, the background and music on the home screen keep changing based on what tile you’ve highlighted (though you can turn the music off), which sort of renders a dynamic theme pointless. But why not just give us the option to turn off the tile-related background changes and let us put on a dynamic theme instead? In fact, that’s pretty much exactly what the new Xbox home UI is doing now. Hopefully the PS5 will follow suit.
UPDATE HISTORY
Though the PS4 allowed you to check every game’s update history and read through the patch notes for all prevous patches, that’s not an option on PS5, which still remains a bit baffling. No, it’s not a major feature to be missing, and yes, it’s a bit of a nitpick, but there’s no denying that it could be useful at times, especially for the particularly broken or technically messy games where you could easily check in on what improvements had been made with new updates. Given how basic this feature is, our hope is that Sony will add it back in sooner rather than later.
DUAL AUDIO OUTPUT
The use case for this feature is admittedly highly specific, and assuming that it wouldn’t have gotten much widespread use, it’s easy to understand why the PS5 hasn’t had it so far. Being able to output audio through both a headset and through whatever sound system you’re using is, however, quite a basic feature that we’re hoping Sony will eventually end up adding in with a future update. Playing local multiplayer with someone or even having a spectator watch you play becomes a much better experience when you can continue to get audio through your headset while they get the regular audio feed as well.
OPTION TO REMOVE CARDS
Many of PS5’s biggest UI and UX changes worked out quite well, but it’s fair to say that some of them definitely didn’t. Take the Activity Cards, for instance- having cards that track specific in-game activities and let you make targeted progress towards certain goals sounds like a great idea on paper, but as it turns out, not too many people end up using Activity Cards. Which means that while they’re certainly useful for those who do use them, for the many who do not, they’re nothing but clutter and serve no purpose other than messing uo your screen with pointless blocks. Being able to remove Activity Cards entirely and make your UI look cleaner and less busy is an option that everyone should have.