Look, it's likely that most PS5 users don't even care, but we think it's neat that the current-gen console offers up playtime statistics on demand. Or at least, it tries to. Ever since the PS5 launched, players have been pointing out weird inconsistencies with their tracked playtimes, and not too long ago, it was reported that an update to the tracking system had supposedly reset a lot of the stats.
In truth, no one really seems to know how the tracking works, and it somehow just got even more incomprehensible. Over the last 24 hours or so, players have been suggesting — on places like the PlayStation Reddit and Twitter (thanks PSLS) — that another background update has buggered everything up again. Some people are saying they've lost hundreds of tracked hours across various PS5 games, which we suppose is a bit of a kicker if you're into this kind of statistical geekery.
Luckily, we were checking our playtime stats just the other day out of sheer curiosity — and so we've gone and booted up our PS5 to see if there have been any weird adjustments since. As it turns out, most of our logged hours seem accurate enough, but a select few games have gone off the rails. What was once around 150 hours in Diablo 4 has inexplicably dropped to 30, while the PS4 version of Fallout 4 — which we had clocking in at a rather embarrassing 400 hours or so — has plummeted to 40.
Again, we don't know why this is happening or whether there's any specific pattern to it — there's a chance that it could even just be some kind of bug — but it does reinforce the idea that the PS5 playtime tracker isn't what you'd call... accurate.
Do you get much use out of the PS5's game time tracker? Commence your own investigation in the comments section below.
[source reddit.com, via playstationlifestyle.net]
Comments 45
I do wish this feature worked properly
also why is the explore tab still not available in the uk?
Dave the Diver broke my game time tracker. I still can’t believe how much time I’ve invested into that game. Was not expecting that one to make it to my lifetime top 10 most played PS games.
We all should be thankful and relieved that Sony is in console business and not nuclear reactors.
@trev666 Not only should it work, they should do so much more with it. There should be tons of stat tracking on your profile: Most Played Games, Most Active Days, Trophy Stats, etc etc.
There's loads they could do here and they definitely have the data. Not saying it'd be easy, but it could make profiles so much more rich.
One of mine as gone from 100 hours to 185 hours and I haven't played the game in 8 months
I tend to leave games running a lot, maybe I cook something, go to the shops, have a long conversation... So this feature isn't that useful to me - even if it worked. I supposedly have something like 600 hours in Pirate Warriors 3, which I really doubt. Within a week of Dragon's Dogma 2 coming out, I had like 70 hours despite being about level 8 and not even in the first city yet.
@NoHope Though going off the sound of the PS4 Pro, you'd think they were making nuclear reactors.
Excuse me, it worked at some point??? I was thinking it is some random digit... ?
@get2sammyb the nintendo 3DS diary app should be standardized on all platforms.
Let me check silly data like how often I’ve started a game, my average playtime between start ups, my daily, weekly, monthly and yearly playtime averages.
And let me sort them by silly categories like most days played.
It’s never worked has it?
@get2sammyb also why is the explore tab American accounts only
I just want to turn it off
It's a nice idea in theory but it's always going to cause contention because even if it did work reliably the numbers are never going to match in game timers. Why? Because every game tracks this differently. Some keep ticking when you are in menu's, others while paused etc. and some seem bugged to keep counting while on the dash. There is no standard.
Ultimately it means that you have two different numbers which will only cause the sort of people that like to look at numbers irritation, myself included. In the end it's just a nice curio.
I must admit to always having liked the feature as it gives me an idea to how much i played a game - particularly if thinking should i buy the sequel / similar game.
But its always been a bit "creaky" - i have been sure on multiple occasions that the number it comes back with is heavily inflated for some games but not others - with no real pattern (its not mostly/all sony games for example).
@thefourfoldroot1 In my experience, it's... kind of worked. At least, I think it has. Most of my playtimes seem fairly accurate, although there are definitely some that seem completely wrong.
Those 'most played' stats emails PlayStation sends out at the end of the year have often been incorrect for me as well. I remember one year, it said Skyrim was my most played game, despite only having booted it up to check out the mod update or something. Had me down for 200 hours or something crazy.
So yeah, it's definitely hit and miss!
@NoHope I rate your witty remark 3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible
👍
Fingers crossed it wipes my 1800 hours in Fortnite.
Funniest inconsistency on my console: I played Little Goody Two Shoes twice, adding up to over 20 hours of gameplay, but my playstation says I've only played it for 8 minutes lol. World record holder right here!
@BusyOlf
Hehe, what can I say, I enjoy my PS1, PS2, PS4 and PS5. But Sony could easily do so much better.
The timer is a nice feature and for me it works more often than not.
@Matroska
I got lucky with my PS4Pro it was extremely silent.
Also, one thing that really pisses me off is that the completion bar is almost never accurate. I'll beat a game and it'll tell me I'm only 40% through it and my next activity is like a level in the game from 10-20 hours ago. The menu art is permanently changed to some low resolution jpeg of where the console thinks I am in the game, and of course Sony gives you no option to disable it. Such *****.
Not surprised with all the time some play on just one single title since Nov. 2020. Can only log so much.
Sony is not a Software company. They should really make their UI’s less and get a few things right then try and add a lot of stuff and it sometimes works or is useful. I thought the card system was a waste of resources. I don’t dislike the Ui but there are things on it that i don’t use and the ones i do aren’t always very accurate. This is an area i like my Xbox Ui way more in. I love the Switch Ui for how clean it is.
I've spent 341 hours on FFXIV Online and then I woke up to 114 hours instead. What a joke of a "time tracker" this is lol I like knowing how much time I've spent on a title and it serves as a clear indicator of my enjoyment for said title.
Sort it out Sony.
So this is why my Demons Souls playtime went -3 hours in front of my eyes when I refreshed my app front page
Not that I really care but Fortnite went from over 1,300 hours to 11 HOURS.
If like me you care about measuring your game time, you shouldn’t be using the OS to track it anyway.
Track the time you spend playing the game, not the time it’s been open while you go off and do other things.
@GilgaMax96 I believe /playtime will you your FFXIV playtime from the actual game servers
@LowDefAl Well, I just checked in game and it's the same time as it was on the PS5 UI. So, it makes no sense for the times to have decreased all of a sudden.
Oh my God my hours are so *****. From 70 down to 4 in Death Stranding. Cut in half down to 200 in Dead by Daylight. Elden Ring from 90 to 20. Damn this is annoying
@HonestHick You're not wrong, but their incompetence in regards to the PS5's UI and not fixing and/or adding things three and a half years in to the console generation is still surprising. The playtime tracker might not matter for some people, but it's still one thing that's been broken off and on from the start and shouldn't still be unstable after this long.
The PS4's might have been sluggish at times if you didn't upgrade to an SSD drive and the store was cluttered, but most of the time almost everything worked as it should. If something was broken, I had confidence that they would actually fix it in due time. This gen though? It's as if they either canned them all and hired a staff off of Craig's List or they scaled the staff so far back that they just can't live up to the reputation they established with their work on the PS4's UI.
I love my PS5, but stuff like this at this point is completely inexcusable.
@KilloWertz i agree haha the Graig’s list comment got me.
You see why console gamers like myself say things to people on here that wish Xbox would leave the hardware market. Cause with MS on the market this is the Sony we get, imagine when they have no competition in that space? One thing i will give the PC gamer is even tho they are loyal fanboys to Nvida or AMD, I rarely to ever see them say they wish the other one would go out of business. Cause they know what will happen if they do. But PS5 gamers don’t want a Xbox that PS outsells handily to even exist. I take a lot of issue with that and i do my best to call it out when i can.
For the record I am not saying you do this. I am just saying your point you made is valid and it would be worse with competition. Sorry to have ranted at you buddy 😊
Mine has worked just fine up until now.
I'll check to see if it's gone mad, but I know it teaches my 175 hours on FFXVI, my 3,000+ hours on happy dungeons etc. )It even showed your PS4 games total times)
IMO, the weirdest part of this whole issue is that the games that are clearly wrong on my end are Sony exclusives. GoW Ragnarok, Gran Turismo, Ratchet & Clank, etc.
The weirdest is when my save file itself, within the game, tells me that I have signifigantly more time played than the PS5 says. Like, its right there to use!
@HonestHick Their domination of the last generation is what led to this. Yeah, I agree that it would be a disaster if Microsoft stopped making consoles. PlayStation is already bad enough this gen. It's not like they would stop trying to make good hardware and good games, but they'd probably stop making as many.
No harm. The apology is accepted and I'm fine about the rant. I've had my fair share of rants from time to time.
@KilloWertz thanks buddy, i try and keep it fair. I own all 3 consoles. Been made fun on here for saying i do… somehow!
I use my Xbox more and it’s my daily driver mainly cause i prefer the controller. But i love me some Nintendo and Sony exclusives. If Sony had a controller i loved more than Xbox i might jump ship. But 5 generations in that hasn’t been the case for me and my play style. I’m looking forward to seeing what Sony shows this month, and yes i am a PS5 Pro guy.i will trade in my older PS5 towards a Pro. Never plan not to support them just don’t agree with they should have no competition.
Would be nice to be able to hide the % completed, sometimes I don't want to know how long I have left of the game to finish it!
I "lost" around 200h in Diablo 4!
It’s never been the most accurate to begin with. I’m not too worried about it. Still, would be nice if they made it correct since it is there. I checked my games out of curiosity and saw no significant differences.
Yes, my stats got screwed, and I'm happy I ran into this post. I've been playing my favorite PS5 game for over 1200 hours and now the statistic went back at 400. They better fix that *****.
@HeeHo Gems of War 2134 hours in total... 126 trophies.
@Kingy oooh! That what's going on? I had the same exact thing happen with stray the other day..
It’s really annoying that this bug is even a thing. My PS5 says my Fortnite hours played severely downgraded itself from 1535 hours all the way down to 264 hours. The hell? Hope they actually fix it, it’s interesting to see how many hours you’ve put into certain games
Late but I just noticed my Fortnite playtime jumped from 868 hours to 68 total
@EckoTheFox yeah I hate that my Fortnite hours have been reset. Easily my most played game.
mine seems to be corrected now
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