What the hell does the UI look like?

An obvious one but we still have no idea what the PlayStation 5’s UI will look like, or how it’ll operate. Although this may not be a big deal to some gamers out there who are happy to find out on the day, but I’m a sticky-beak who hosts a PlayStation Podcast and writes about video games every day. 

C’mon, Sony. Drop the deets. 

There will be a lot to unpack when they finally do reveal the UI. It has been rumoured and semi-confirmed that it’s a brand new OS and UI, which would make sense given they’ve done it with every new console in the past. Given how sluggish, and frankly old, the current PS4 UI feels and looks, I’m holding out for something special.

Is my entire digital library of PlayStation 4 games downloadable with ease on launch day?

Let me emphasis: “downloadable with ease.” I don’t want to have to install a special app to play PlayStation 4 games. I don’t want to crawl through menus in the PlayStation store or my library to find the game I want. It needs to be as simple as opening the library and seeing all of my PS5 and PS4 digital purchases listed in one long-ass list. 

Additional points: have every single game I’ve ‘hidden’ on my PS4 library still stay hidden when I’m looking through my library on the PS5. Let me search for whatever game I want. Let me narrow the selection down to just PS4 or PS5 games if I wish. 

For games that have an upgrade path, like Cyberpunk 2077 — can I transfer my save from PS4 to PS5?

I’m assuming the basic answer to this question is: yes you can. But I’m more interested in just how we can transfer those saves. The Xbox family of consoles can magically upload their saves to the cloud and make sure you’re playing with the right file no matter what console or platform you’re booting up. We can only hope the PS5 works with a similar level of ease.

What I’m scared of seeing happen is Sony leaving it up to each developer to implement their own cloud save transfer feature into their games. That would be a very archaic PS3-era type thing to do.

Has the PlayStation store finally been upgraded? 

Let’s not pretend the PlayStation Store isn’t basic AF. The revamp we saw between the PS3 and PS4 generation was an improvement over a store that took several minutes to open, but in 2020 the current version is severely outdated.

An overhaul of the store would update the speed of finding things and general user friendless, but also introduce some much-needed features like wishlists.

You can add games to your wishlist on the browser version of the store, but you can’t access that list on your console. You also cannot look at your friends’ wishlists or share your own. Buying and gifting games is also a much-needed feature.

With this next generation introducing an all-digital version of the PS5, the store not only needs these major improvements, but it’s also in need of a lot more attention given to sales. Sony should be incentivising people to play all-digitally by also rewarding players with constant and varied sales. Valve and Steam are ahead of all the consoles when it comes to this and if ever there was a generation to catch-up, now is the time.

Will we have PS5 games on PlayStation Plus?

We know we’re getting the PS Collection at launch. 18 PS4 games that most hardcore PlayStation players would have played before. But what about PS5 games? 

The PS4 launched with Contrast and Resogun. The next couple of months saw mostly mediocre titles follow Resogun, but at least they were there to help pad-out players libraries.

Sony won’t be dropping the PS4 games for some time since that’s where their biggest install base remains. It took them years to drop the PS3 games from PS Plus. 

I’d love to see the monthly collection changed to 1 PS5 game and 1 PSVR game alongside two PS4 games.