Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) have revealed the PlayStation 5 menu and user interface; or rather the “user experience” or UX.
As a reminder; the console will launch November 12th in the US, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. For the rest of the world, it will launch November 19th. The PlayStation 5 will cost $499.99 USD, while the Digital Edition will cost $399.99 USD.
Speaking on the PlayStation Blog, Senior Vice President of Platform Planning & Management explained how the new interface will “provide you a truly next-generation experience with deeper immersion that quickly connects you to great games and a passionate gaming community.”
Inspired by the concept and vision of the user’s play time being valuable and meaningful, the new features are designed to “make your gaming experiences more fun, engaging, personalized and social.” This includes the Control Center, granting “immediate access to almost everything you need from the system at a single press of the PlayStation button.”
This includes seeing who is online, download statuses, controller and power options, news, recent screenshots and more. This can also be accessed when the console boots up from Rest Mode, so while players can resume from where a game was left off, they can also access the Control Center.
A new feature called Activities has also been added, displaying “cards” on screen “which enables you to discover new gameplay opportunities, go back to things you missed, jump directly into levels or challenges you want to play, and much more.” These can also be accessed from the Home menu, jumping straight into those levels as the game boots up.
For example, this shows when a level has not been fully complete, the remaining objectives to do so, and an estimate on how long this should take. Some objectives will also have “Game Help” for PlayStation Plus members.
This displays a video and advise on how to complete that objective, so users don’t have to rely on web-searching for articles that may have spoilers or long videos. These hint videos and cards can also be put in picture-in-picture or pinned to the side of the screen. Cards can also be pinned in menus for quick access.
Backwards compatible PlayStation 4 titles will also be able to benefit from “some” of the above features as well.
Players can also open or mute voice chat with friends, and Parties where you can engage in screen sharing, which can also be done picture-in-picture and pinned to the side of the screen, users will also be able to jump into those games, and join them in their game. This can also be done via the Control Center.
The PlayStation 5 is also “always capturing recent gameplay,” and via the Create button on the DualSense controller, to take screenshots. These can also be shared with Parties, and shared screenshots can have messages written via voice dictation. Shared screenshots taking place in activities that could contain a spoiler can also be marked as such by the developer- warning the receiving player before they look at it.
Finally, the PlayStation Store is now integrated into the PlayStation 5 menu- rather than being its own app.
You can find the footage of the menus below.
