When we take a glance over at our PlayStation 5 we still feel all giddy inside; but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved. The PS5 is an impressive piece of hardware but when the console launched, it still had a few problems, some of which Sony has targeted in its latest software update. The list of improvements and changes is comprehensive but overall, this update should make it much easier to use the console.
If you want to check out the complete update log, you can find a breakdown over on the official PlayStation blog. If you’d rather have the condensed version, we’ve pulled some of the more significant features for this update and included them in this post. So let’s start with the change we’re most happy to see…
Store PS5 games on a compatible external USB drive
Easily the worst part of the PS5 is that measly SSD. It’s fast, don’t get us a wrong, but given how large games are these days it’s also an absolute pain to manage your storage. This update now allows users to store their games on an external hard drive… but you can’t play them off the device. So basically, this is just a place to stash the games you haven’t played yet but don’t want to delete. You’ll be able to download games directly onto the external hard drive too so when you’re sick of Demon’s Souls you can just swap it out for Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
120Hz refresh rate with 1080p TVs, and other monitor goodies
While the PS5 delivers on sweet and smooth frames while gaming, certain monitors weren’t able to really capitalise on that tasty 120Hz frame rate. And, weirdly enough, 1080p displays didn’t register that number of frames at all. This update fixes that, so you needn’t worry about upgrading your monitor. Oh, and you can now set the PlayStation to output in SDR if that’s the only option rather than forcing HDR which does sometimes make games look pretty… bad.
Share Play now works between the PS4 and the PS5
While we don’t really know how many people actually use Share Play, it’s nice that the feature is being made backwards compatible with the PS4. This feature allows users to, well, share their experiences with their PSN friends. This includes sharing their game screen for a personal stream and or even the ability to try PS5 games through the Share Play option. You just need a disgustingly fast internet connection to do all of this effectively, but consider how few people own the PS5 and the PS4’s massive install base, it’s nice that this option has been added.
There’s more…
Those are just the improvements we thought were worth mentioning but if you head on over to the official PlayStation Blog there’s an extensive list of changes that should make your gaming experience even better. There’s even been a few changes made to the PlayStation Mobile App… for all three people that use it. Still, nice to know that Sony has improvements in mind for both its hardware and software.
