New PS5 Firmware Update Adds Community Game Help Feature, Here Are All the Patch Notes

Still waiting for update which let discord voice chat can be recorded/streamed.

Didn't even know there was a special status for people who use Remote Play.

Still no fun updates/things people actually want or care about(like themes or folders), same ol’ boring ps5

Updates to Game Help when all we want is access to the web-browser, Sony!
Oh, and the usual please: folders, themes, long PS button press shortcut menu...

PS5 is coming up for 4 years old and its UI is just as miserable and depressing as it always was. I'm off to go and enjoy the PS2 theme on my trusty old Pro.

In regard to Remote Play I know Portals are tough to come by but I’ve been having a blast running it on my iPad. Works terrifically even with a game like FF16 where the screen can get quite busy during combat.

I’d like them to stop working on all this social rubbish and just give me my VR trophy room!

Waiting for the new UI to release

@sanderson72 - The lack of a fully functioning web browser is baffling. My fridge has better internet capability than my PS5!

Who even uses these game help features? And why are Sony so obsessed with it

@nomither6 themes can't work when ever game u do has it own background how would it even work

@thefourfoldroot1 I would love a more sophisticated way to display and organize trophies. I’m not a VR adopter, but if they could also have just a standard virtual trophy room that one could enter to see/display trophies, that would be sweet. I’d even just take just a simple filter and organizing function for the list. Like let me see all my platinums at a glance, or all my PS3 trophies together, or maybe have a search function so I can go straight to a specific game’s list. I guess PSN Profiles and other third party sites can do some of this, but I would rather it be native on my console and in the app.

@Slayer25c If you've not seen how the PS3's XMB interface works with themes, I suggest you have a look online (not via the PS5, of course!) as that concept would work for the 5.

Personally I’d like to see them improve the media player that’s currently lacking almost every feature of the PS4 one.

Maybe im the odd one, but I always thought the PS5 UI to be pretty good, particularly from a functional point of view, there is a lot of good here.
Themes and homescreen folders would be good (much better than just having music for games tile/page when you are on it and devs include it), but PS5 still feels a big improvement over PS4 to me, and allows me to easily access what i want before starting up a game.

I guess that feature showing you "Update History" directly from game menu showing you full patch notes, that was with PS4 from the beginning will never be added. 🙄

More and more whole PS5 is a joke.

I am not a fan of the bloated UI but I still cannot get why we can't back up the saves via USB.

Still no folders

@Jeaz Hardly a priority. The Explore Page is a US feature only.

For those asking for a internet browser I don't see that happening, xbox cloud gamepass is available via web browser which would result in third party games getting less sales on playstation as people would just stream them via the browser instead.

Why are people screaming for a web browser? So you can browse in the worst possible way? What's the point when you have a phone in your pocket?

@UltimateOtaku91 The weird thing is it does have a browser, and small section in the settings related to it. As far as I know you can only access it by messaging a friend a URL, then clicking that yourself. There, now you have a web browser open.

@sanderson72 send yourself a link, in a message, and it opens the ps5 web browser. You can have it snapped to the side in split-screen with your gameplay.

no updates on any of these then

ps5 saves on usb
themes
folders
explore page to the uk
media player

@UltimateOtaku91 Honestly I think it has less to do with blocking game pass, and more to do with avoiding the billions in tort litigation from parents and governments for their kids seeing bad things on the internet on a Playstation, and copyright tort from other companies. They could block game pass by just breaking certain components. Same with Nintendo after advertising the browser on WiiU and 3DS. MS does it because they're the browser mfr so it's a whole other thing for them. It kind of freaked me out launching the FFXIV store pages and being greeted with the normal Edge Windows setup screens and connecting to your normal account. I would have said it's also about hacking/emus but the browser's still there for those people, they just don't make it easy to get to for little Timmy who searches for "Is Tifa a Sonic character" and is not prepared for what he sees.

@Rich33 The reason the PS5 UI is terrible is that most of the things you need take numerous button presses to get to. That's just terrible UI design. Starting with the most basic of all, turning the system off, we went from long-press PS, X, X (it's been a while since i used PS4 so I might be missing a down there) to press PS, right, right, right, right, right, (but contextually the number of rights can change), X, X.

To get to, say, a game in your RPG "Folder" we went from "right a few times to get to the folder, X, then navigate the folder to hte game" to "hold right until it scrolls all the way to the end, X, then R1 to tab to the library, then , I think down then right a few times to tab to the group/folder you want, then X, then navigate the folder (sorted only by newest or alphabetical.) It's so complicated I do it every day and can't even remember the steps in my head without having it in front of me. And if you mess up and accidentally hit R2 and go to the movies tab (didn't PS even discontinue selling movies?!) you have to hit Circle and start all over again from the beginning. It's like a menu designed as a Dark Souls checkpoint.

The UI is "fine" but it falls apart with way too many button presses to do anything other than launch the last game you played.

@Mikey856 Because kids are into social things according to demographic survey data so making the PS5 more social makes PS5 more attractive to kids, according to 60 year old brand managers everywhere. "Social" is the new "totally radical!"

Still no PS Stars on our PS5 homepage or profile so we can keep a proper eye on it

@NEStalgia When you have to Google "how do I close down a PS5 game" as I had to, you know there's something wrong.

To be fair, you can reorganise the PS5 weird menu thing that shows up when you tap the Fisher-Price DS5's PS button, in the same way as you can also customise the PS4's pop up menu.
To close down my PS4, it's long press PS button, down one, right one, down one as my Power options are now just under 'Close Application'. Can't remember how many button clicks are needed from tapping the DS5 button as it's been quite a while since I've used it.

The interface is pretty bad, I'm pretty sure the xbone could watch YT and you could defo snap in group chat to the side of the screen. These aren't complicated things to program.

@Quintumply I'm not really planning to use the community help feature myself (PowerPyx and YouTube cover the majority of what I want), but out of curiosity do you know of a list of supported games?

@Rich33 I am totally with You on this.

Anyone else having trouble installing the firmware? It’s been almost an hour telling me it’s preparing to turn off the PS5 and warning me not to unplug it.

Edit: It wasn’t firmware related, just a coincidence. Support helped once I googled their number.

@sanderson72 You need math to figure out how many button presses. The formula is: acceptable number x 10 / 2

I honestly did not know you could customize the menu at all, probably because the UI is so awful. Definitely my least favorite console UI of all time. Just ignoring the standard conventions for how to turn a machine off was a bad omen.

@NEStalgia
Ah - its probably that i reorganised stuff around a fair bit when i 1st turned it on - something i generally do on all devices (then completely forget ive done it). Game close and power options are right at the start for me.
Also, even with a 1TB expansion, I dont normally end up with many downloaded games in my library section, and not on the homescreen, though the old folder option would be nice.

@sanderson72 l had forgotten about the ps2 theme on ps4, l loved that too! l also loved the 20th anniversary theme with the ps1 startup jingle 😁

@Slayer25c the same way it worked on the ps3. like how a lot of things used to work before they took it all away

Anyone noticed any improvements to PlayStation Portal?

@whitejessegpfc as a day one Portal owner I’ve loved the machine! I bought to play Cyberpunk and had a blast over 30 hours.

@Shigurui
There once was one (and there still is one, but can't just be opened and used). I think they removed it to close a potential Game Pass loophole. That has got to be at least part of it. Security might be the other.

@nomither6 lol they would need to redo the whole ui it not that simple

@Slayer25c the ps5 ui is trash , that’s what everyone’s complaints about it are , is the ui itself . nobody had a problem with the ps3 ui, nobody had a problem with the ps4 , they changed it for no legitimate reason .

@sanderson72 Am I reading this wrong or is this a troll post? You had to search how to close down a PS5 game?

PS5 UI is easily my least favourite of the Playstation consoles, I'd love to be able to just go to the home screen by pressing the PS button but even that's beyond them, let alone the loss of folders and themes that we had before

@Luigia I honestly can't imagine playing Cyberpunk on a tiny screen at 1080p that is one game I prefer to enjoy in all its 4k big screen goodness.

@Nepp67 No, I'm not joking or trolling!
First time trying to quit a game on the PS5, I pressed the PS button, held down the PS button and nothing happened apart from the dashboard coming up. Clicked on the game icon again but that just puts you back into the game you're trying to quit, moved up and down the details but nothing.
Eventually, I googled for the answer. I mean, it's hardly obvious to go back to the dashboard, press the Options button (only when you're over the game icon you're trying to close down though?) then select the Close Game pop-up menu option that had appeared.
Or there's the 'Switcher' widget at the bottom of the screen - I don't want to switch anything, I want to close the game so why would I go into that but of course that's where a close game menu pops up!?
Perhaps I was naive expecting it to work exactly like the PS3 & PS4's straightforward "PS long press->Close Game"?
Sooner they bin this UI or do some serious redesigns for the PS6,, the better.

@Jett I loved it as 8inch 1080p and felt soo immersive! Portal is such a joy to use

Besides the obvious missing ui and qol features, i wish they would improve the game library. Give us tabs/filters. If you have no creative bone in your body, look over to xbox game library, there I can easily sort my games (owned, essential and so on).

Worst thing, you can not backup single game saves to usb.

@sanderson72 I don't understand how you struggled that badly other than that you have never used a console before. You're really telling me, you never once thought of pressing the "options" button? The button that takes you to a pause menu in game so you can quit your game?

Anyone else wish you could pin more than 5 bloody games to the line? I'm old now and forget I have something installed if it's moved off the conveyor at the top 🤣

@Rich33 Only thing I would like is themes and the ability to use the triggers in order to get to one end from another. I don't know why that was not added back in from the PS4. Other than that I have very little issue with the PS5 home screen and consider it far better compared to Xbox's.

Most exciting part was the introduction of qr codes to scan so you could read all the stuff in that 'article'

@Nepp67 "other than that you have never used a console before"
Eh? Other than the original Playstation, PS2 fat, PS3 fat, PS3 Slim (after fatty broke), PS4 (shiny top) PS4 Pro and finally, The Tub o' Lard itself, the PS5.

PS3 and PS4 introduced the dashboard UI - long press of the PS button on both consoles, a pop-up menu appears, one option being Close Game/Application and you return to said dashboard.
Pressing Options doesn't necessarily bring you to an option to close a game down and return to dashboard. For example, pressing Options on Elder Scrolls Online just brings you to the main menu where you can quit game and it returns you to the character selection screen - Options does nothing! You have to close application at this point, and the only way to do that on the PS5 is by one of two convoluted methods, Switcher or Options on the game icon on the dashboard? I mean, who signed that off?
I wouldn't have minded if a long press of the PS button brought up the Switcher if there's an active game - at least that would have been some use.

@sanderson72 Okay so let me get this straight, you saw the button prompt to press "Option" on the game in the Switcher menu and your thought was never, "Oh, maybe I should press the options button this time on the PS Dashboard in the game app"? I'm struggling to understand if this is still a troll post. If you think holding the PS button to go to the to dashboard to then press the options button to close the app or even using the switcher menu to close the app is "Convoluted" then I am very concerned for you.

@Nepp67 Why would it be a troll post? Personally, I think the PS5 UI sucks, and I know I'm not alone in that.

However:
PS3 - hold down PS button, menu appears, select "Quit Game"
PS4 - hold down PS button, menu appears, select "Close Application"
Given that, why didn't Sony implement the same procedure in the PS5?

@sanderson72 You can literally do that exact same procedure but with an additional button press. Hold down PS button, press options, close game. There are things to criticize the PS5 UI about but this isn't one of them. Especially when you think it's somehow "Convoluted."