Sony has rolled out a major update for both the PS5 and PS4 consoles, but what kind of features and upgrades can you expect?
We’ve listed all of the most important updates right here, so if you want to know all of the new features your PlayStation is capable of, keep reading on.
Open and Closed Parties
When starting a party to talk to your friends on a PS5 or PS4, you can now choose whether it will be a closed or open party.
An open party makes it visible to your friends list, allowing them to hop in and start chatting without a prior invitation. Whereas a closed party means you can only join if you’ve been directly invited, allowing you to have private conversations with a select few friends.
Voice commands
PlayStation is trialling a new Voice Command functionality for allowing users to open app, games and settings, working just like an Amazon Echo device. Only those in the UK and US can use it right now, and it only supports the English language, but we’re expecting Sony to roll out this Voice Command feature in other countries if it proves to be successful.
If you fit the brief, you can simply say “Hey, PlayStation” to get the console’s attention, and then give your command – it’s that simple!
Keep in home
At default, the PS5 home screen displays your most recently played games, but PlayStation is now allowing for more customisation. You can now set a game or app to permanently stay on your home screen, even if you’ve played several other games since. This could be handy for those who play games on a frequent basic, such as weekly sessions of Fortnite on a Friday night.
In order to pin a game or app, simply click options on your DualSense, and then you’ll see “Keep in Home” near the bottom. And of course, you’ll be able to unpin them if you ever change your mind too.
Variable Refresh Rate support for PS5 (coming soon)
Sony also confirmed that it plans to finally unlock support for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) in the coming months. If you’ve got a compatible TV or monitor, this means the PS5 will be capable of dynamically shifting the refresh rate of your display according to a game’s frame rate.
This means frame rate drops shouldn’t be as noticeable, hopefully resulting in a smoother performance for supported PS5 games. Sony also notes that VRR should also work with unsupported PS5 games too, although an improvement to the video quality won’t be guaranteed for such instances, so you’ve always got the option to deactivate VRR if you fancy. We’re hoping this will go a long way to improving Elden Ring‘s performance.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
