I’ve had my hands on the PlayStation 5 for several days now and while I’m very impressed with Sony’s newest console so far, I can also see that there is plenty of room for improvement.
The PlayStation 5 has some nifty new features and is really fast and responsive when navigating the user interface. That said, I’ve also been finding things here and there that are either features that I enjoyed using on the PlayStation 4 that are missing here or features that I was hoping to see on PlayStation 5. Here are some of the features that I think Sony needs to add soon to make their next generation experience much better for gamers.
- External Drive Support to Store Our PlayStation 5 Games – With the PlayStation 5’s internal SSD size being less than 700GB you’ll find yourself running out of room very fast. The console just came out and I already can’t fit all of my PlayStation 5 games on it. You can currently store your PlayStation 4 games on external drives but the PlayStation 5 games are stuck on the internal SSD. Sony has said that they are looking into this but I really hope it comes soon.
- Stability Improvements – It’s no secret that some PlayStation 5 owners have been running into issues with the console already. I myself kept getting a database crash error over and over the first night I set mine up. Other people have complained about issues that seem to be coming from using rest mode or external drives with the PlayStation 4 games. No one likes to have their games or console crash on them so hopefully Sony gets these issues fixed soon.
- Folders – Now the reason I think folders aren’t on the PlayStation 5 currently is because there is limited space for games. Sony probably figured since you won’t be able to store many games on the console right now that they didn’t need them. When and if they do add the option to expand the storage for PlayStation 5 games, they need to add folder support for us to organize them in.
- Theme Support – Yet another feature missing from the PlayStation 4 is theme support. Now don’t get me wrong, seeing the art for the various games pop up is nice but we miss our custom backgrounds and dynamic themes. Bring them back Sony.
- PlayStation Store Navigation Improvements – The new PlayStation Store on the PlayStation 5 is so much faster to navigate than the PlayStation 4 one thanks to it being built in. However, it pales in comparison to the old store in options to find things. If you’re someone like me who used to enjoy going to the store to see what all was new on it then you’ll find that practically impossible now. While you can find and sort games by newest there is no add-on section anywhere. The only way to find add-ons now is to go to a game and see them there. That means that you basically already need to know what you’re looking for. I also don’t see any place to see the current sales that are going on which is a huge oversight as well.
- PlayStation Store Feature Improvements – One of the best things about the new store is the ability to have a wishlist. This was available before on the web version but this is the first time console users can use it. However, there is a 100 limit on it and with a wealth of PS4 and soon to be PS5 games that can fill up fast. I think Sony should expand it to at least 500 items and let us put add-ons on our wishlist too. The ability to gift other players with items on the store would also be nice to see. Finally, add an option for people to leave user reviews on items to better inform others players.
- Quick Resume – One of the best new features of the Xbox Series is the Quick Resume feature that lets players keep several games open in memory and jump back into them within seconds. The PlayStation 5 doesn’t offer this and if there is any way for Sony to add it later they absolutely should.
- Miscellaneous – Some other things would be nice to have on the PlayStation 5 with one of them being the web browser. Not everyone uses this but many do and Sony should bring it back. There are already browser options in the console settings and a hidden way to even access one. Sony should also bring back the option to let us hide games in our library as once again we are forced to look at a bunch of demos and betas that we’d rather hide. A search feature in the library also needs to come back so that we don’t have to scroll all the way down to get to what we want to play. A couple other missing features from the PlayStation 4 include the ability to view patch notes and download and upload your cloud saves from the game tile. Before you could click the options button on any game tile and see the update history and access your cloud saves. PlayStation 4 games still seem to show update history but I see no way to view patch notes for PlayStation 5 titles. Getting to your cloud saves now requires you to go to the system settings, scroll down to save data management, click on PS4 or PS5 save data, click on console or cloud storage, and then click download or upload to find your files. That is far too many clicks when we used to be able to do it from each individual game. Fix this please Sony.
- VRR and 1440p Support – Adding support for 1440p display support would please many players who enjoy playing on monitors. VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) support is also needed to help make games with inconsistent frame-rates much more enjoyable.
- PS1 and PS2 Support – The fact that the PlayStation 5 offers just about full backwards compatibility support for our PlayStation 4 games is great. However, many of us would love to see PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 support as well. There really is no reason why the PlayStation 5 can’t run these games. At the very least Sony should let us be able to download our PlayStation 1 and 2 classics that we bought on the PlayStation Store during the PlayStation 3 generation. This one is probably doubtful to happen but we can hope.
- Trophy Improvements – I’m someone who enjoys earning trophies in most games I play so I’m always thinking of ways that they could be better. I really like that the PlayStation 5 will now record a video of every trophy you earn but I think there should be an option to let players decide whether it records all trophies or just trophies of a certain type (Platinum, Gold, etc.) I also think the new layout for viewing the trophy list is too big as before we could see more of them on our screen at one time. Another feature that would be cool is if Sony had some kind of monthly trophy leaderboard to compete against your friends on. The Xbox has this for achievements and it would be cool to see Sony add a similar feature.
So those are just some of the features and improvements that I think will make the PlayStation 5 much more enjoyable than it already is. Let us know in the comments what you want to see in future firmware updates.
