Topic: PlayStation 5 --OT--

Copy and pasted from the comments section of the firmware update article...

This is easily their worst firmware update for the PS5 that I can remember other than the ones that just improve performance and such. It seems like the folders thing is a disappointment from the comments I read, and forcing the Activities onto the home screen is their dumbest move yet.

The UI has been behind the PS4's ever since launch aside from the hardware making it obviously faster, but one of the things it had going for it was that it at least looked pretty nice. Instead of fixing things that actually need fixed, their team continues to look like they were hired on the cheap from Craigslist. Activities were already easy enough to get to if you wanted to, but now instead of the nice backgrounds you would get when you went over to the game's icon, you are now greeted with a screenshot and an advertisement for the damn Activity they want you to complete. Why? At least just give us an option to disable that so we can get the UI back to at least being nice, even if it is still a mess overall. Unfortunately it's in this state after almost 2 years, so my faith in their team that handles the UI is at an all time low.

@KilloWertz Sounds like the "folder" functionality they added is like the bogus one on Switch where you can't see them on your home screen.

Coincidentally, both companies had the folder thing licked on their previous consoles. I can go into my PS4, Wii U, and 3DS and see folders on the dashboard.

wtf

Both did the same thing with themes, too. My 3DS and PS4 are filled with fun themes.

@KilloWertz strange. My activity Card layout is still the same despite having the update.

@jdv95 Mine too. And I just select the game tile to launch it.

@jdv95 @JohnnyShoulder The change is on the Home screen when you would go over to a game tile and then that game would become the background and then the Play Game button would be there and then the trophy info on the far right. That's all still there except now there's a button for Recent Activity to the left of the Play Game button, the background image is now what ever image/screenshot they used for the particular Activity Card they are "advertising", along with a pop-up message telling you to use it. It's entirely unnecessary given that you could use the Activity Cards for games easily already, and it makes the Home screen honestly look like crap now.

Since the image is so big, just go to the blog post and you'll see an image of what I'm talking about. https://blog.playstation.com/2022/07/28/ps5-beta-introduces-1...

@Ralizah Yeah, it is weird that both companies would take that feature out and never actually add it back properly. Honestly, I'd rather they just completely scrapped the PS5's UI and put the PS4's on there and called it a day. The #1 complaint about it not being snappy enough is automatically solved because of the hardware. At least it all worked the way it should. Obviously that's not going to happen, but maybe they'll figure it out before the PS6 comes out.

I've never been interested in using folders, so I think the UI for the Switch is actually good. The eShop isn't the greatest, but the UI for the system itself is still fine. Simple and everything works for the most part. Obviously you notice it's a bit sluggish in comparison to the PS5's when going from one to the other, but it's fine. The almost lack of customization is a bit disappointing though.

@KilloWertz Which is funny, because prior to the next-gen consoles, the Switch felt lightning fast compared to the PS4, Wii U, and Xbone. But yeah, even the comparatively slow and cheap SSD in my PC feels incredible in terms of loading and response times, so I can only imagine how nice it is in the PS5/XSX. Really hoping one of the improvements in Ninty's next console is the adopting of solid state technology. It's the true differentiator between the hardware generations, IMO.

It sounds stupid, but one of the things keeping me from upgrading to a PS5 is the attachment I feel to my PS4 themes. I always enjoy lingering in the menu to listen to the music attached to them.

@Ralizah Yeah, that would make sense. Since it will likely be another hybrid console since the Switch has been so successful, there's not much of a reason not to since they are quite small. If the system ends up being larger, it won't be because of that. While graphics are obviously nice, the sometimes massive improvement in load times has always been what I was looking forward to the most, especially after sitting through the ridiculous load times of some games like The Witcher 3.

Themes have actually been brought up by plenty of fans, so there are obviously plenty of other fans attached to them as well (even if they did ultimately upgrade anyways). You do still get music on the PS5, but it's game specific of course. Not every game has it, but a lot of them do. I've sat there listening to the rock song that plays for Guardians of the Galaxy plenty of times (even if it is just the instrumental for the actual song). Same goes for the Horizon theme and the Uncharted theme that plays for Forbidden West and The Legacy of Thieves Collection.

Maybe by the time you get a PS5 their inept tech team will have figured out how to make the UI be like it should be.

@Ralizah Home menu responsiveness is something you absolutely take for granted until you try one of the older consoles. I was setting up a few games for my mum on her PS4 and I forgot just how slow the menu could be at times. I do miss the themes though! I’ve gotten to the point that overclocking my Vita is almost solely for getting into games quicker too, I’ve not really been playing much that taxing but at least the menu’s more responsive 😂

@nessisonett Yeah I genuinely hate doing anything other than playing games on my Dad's PS4. I've lost count of the times it all freezez when I try to load up the TV app for instance. I know people like moan about the PS5 UI, but at least it works and is snappy to use. Something that I can't really remember PS4 UI being like.

@KilloWertz So, judging by your post, it seems like the nice art backdrops when you select a game have been replaced by screenshots?

If so, that's a shame.

@nessisonett Tell me about it. When I got my New 3DS, going in and out of the home menu felt way faster than on the old one. But now that I'm used to PS4/Switch speeds, the New 3DS feels sluggish when I need to exit out of a game into the menu without closing it.

Although the Vita still feels snappy enough in that regard, despite its age. That system really was so ahead of its time.

I stopped overclocking my Vita when it started causing Adrenaline to crash, unfortunately.

PS5 has been basically bricked for the last hour. Can't connect to verify licenses so can't play any games. Can't restore licenses because it's saying it can't connect. Have console sharing enabled but it clearly doesn't care. Restarted several times. Reset router and modern. Logged out and spent half an hour attempting to log back in all the while getting a server maintenance error even though PSN check says everything is fine.

This is incredibly stupid. I just want to play a single player game. What do servers have to do with this?

Anyone else having issues?

Edit: Lol after over an hour of this now a status check does show "some services are experiencing issues." Yeah right "some" yet every service is down.

@JohnnyShoulder have you tried the ps3 UI lately 😂 though the ps3 UI was always slow but the ps4 UI used to be fast in the beginning then it slowed ; same with the xbox360 dashboard , it used to be snappy then it slowed . i don’t know if the xbox one dash is slower but i wouldn’t surprised , everytime updates happen the hardware gets older to the software

@nomither6 I never had a ps3, but the same would apply with xbox 360, which I have no access to anymore. Yeah I get that with time consoles will get slower, but my overall memory with PS4 is how sluggish it all felt. I suppose that has only got worse now I have a PS5.

If you compare the two consoles in the same time frame, PS4 was already beginning to start feeling a bit sluggish in my experience, which I am not with PS5. And I used to maintain my PS4, cleaning the innards and rebuilding the database. I even installed a new internal hard drive, which was a hybrid and had more storage space.

I think this gen we won't notice the consoles slowing down so much due to the SSD's. The RAM might be an issue going forward though.

@Ralizah Yes, and we also are now greeted with a big giant blue bubble with a message trying to get us to resume the activity when we go over to a game, which is conveniently missing from the image they posted. While it is kind of meaningless in the grand scheme of things since you spend a lot more time playing games than looking at the UI, this is still a pretty bad update to the UI that some are just shrugging off. The activities are literally right below too, so there's no reason for it. It ruins the one thing the UI had going for it, other than it's speed. Some games still are "normal" and still have their artwork since they don't use the Activity Cards, and all games still have the music playing regardless, but I still wish there was an option to disable this.

@KilloWertz If you select the game tile, you launch the game, bypassing the activity cards. When you click down, you see all the game related content, including stuff like store content and activity cards.

I'm not quite sure exactly what the issue is if you can just bypass the activity cards? Maybe a bit annoying if you don't like them and it would be good for a bit more customisation was available.

I think the 'massive blue bubble' that you saw is a tip that comes up when first do something. I've seen those come up before but it should not show up again for whatever you were doing.

@zupertramp That sounds... unfortunate. Is it normal for the PS5 to mandate online checks before launching games? I recall something similar happening with Microsoft recently where a bunch of people couldn't start their games because it wouldn't verify their licenses.

@KilloWertz Oh, yeah, that doesn't look great. And no way to disable whatever these "activity cards" are, huh? Guess we should hope Sony enables the option in a future update.

@JohnnyShoulder @KilloWertz I'm also not a fan of the new layout. It was already cluttered imo, and now it's worse. And in the case of Tlou, resume activity just seems to take you to the home screen and then auto click loading into saved game. I mean, is that really a time saver for anyone? Or easier? But yeah the tip messages only appear once so not too big a deal. Overall though the UI is too messy for my liking but, as was mentioned, I spend most of the time gaming so it's whatever I guess. Had an XSS for awhile which reminds me that it could be so much worse. Nintendo seems to be the only one who've figured the kind of minimalistic presentation I'm looking for, though lack of themes bothers a little there as well.

@Ralizah not sure if it's normal but they, according to Twitter at least, did seem to be experiencing some kind of outage in the middle of the night (for me). Don't normally even stay up that late but after fulfilling all my adult/parent-related obligations, that was the time I had to play. So a tad frustrating not to be able to launch any game. Not sure the relationship between servers and licenses and such so idk what happened and I've seen no coverage on it so still a mystery. Oh well, I probably needed the sleep more. Though I wish I hadn't spent an hour and a half troubleshooting. What am I, a PC gamer?

I will admit that, despite the missing features, I do like how uncluttered the Switch UI is.

Have any of you seen the reveal of the upcoming Xbox Series UI update? It looks awful. Like a giant wall filled with advertisements.

@zupertramp It's pretty funny that we've gotten to the point where next-gen consoles require regular license checks before starting games, but I can play pretty much play everything on my PC offline without issue.

It's honestly a pretty worrying trend. If you're supposed to be able to play games offline, there's no reason not being able to verify a license with PSN should stop you from starting it.

Out of interest, were all of these games you couldn't start digital, or did your physical games suffer the same issues?

@Ralizah

It really, really is. I almost exclusively play single player only (or couch co-op) so you'd think that would guard me against outages. Guess not. I can't think of any other device that can remotely and quite arbitrarily stop functioning. Once again rethinking my console loyalty.

Edit: pretty sure they were all digital but don't know for sure. couldn't test for that variable from an all digital PS5. another wrinkle in my embrace of digital console gaming I suspect.