As someone who has played on every PlayStation console since the original, it goes without saying that the PSN store on the PlayStation 3 was a terrible experience. It was slow, clunky and bland. But most importantly it lacked a seamless experience making life difficult for even simple activities such as buying a game.
Fortunately, Sony revamped the PSN store on the PlayStation 4 resulting into a much better user experience. It is easily one of those PS4 features that changed for the better, but hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. In a recent interview with Forbes, Shawn Layden had the following to say regarding this feature.
He believes the experience on the PS3 store was preventing sales and they have done with their homework on the PS4 by providing a faster platform.
“Do you have a PS3? Did you try to buy something from the store? Did you realize when you were doing that, we gave you like five chances to stop your purchase? It was like, ‘Are you sure you want to buy this? Do you have enough money? Do you want to check your money? Did you ask your mom? Do you want this in your cart? Seriously, in your cart?’”
“It’s like sales prevention was the user experience for PS3. I think with PS4, we’ve really optimized that experience. You know, the download itself is actually faster, and one of the great features is that you can start to play before you’ve completed your download. How good is that? Not waiting forever to get that done? We spent a lot of time and a lot of work around enhancing that experience, which I think has been great for the platform and for users.”
In the past, Sony have slightly modified the PS4’s UI but the PSN store seems to have been largely untouched, which is a testament to how solid the user experience actually is.
