In an official PlayStation blog post released this morning, Sony revealed that they have been working on a variety of “new gameplay and personalization” options for the PlayStation 5, after listening to audience feedback since the console’s release. To test these changes, PlayStation is rolling out beta tests today, allowing invited players in select countries (United States, Canada, Japan, U.K, Germany, and France) to access the new PS5 changes as soon as possible. The post states that invited participants will receive an email when the update is ready to download. With these changes comes a variety of quality of life updates, from the long-awaited 1440p support to additional improvements that will streamline online connection with friends and parties.
As mentioned, the primary draw of this update is the added support for 1440p HDMI video output (granted you have a TV or PC monitor that supports 1440p itself). While the PlayStation 5 has had customizable video output settings, even updating for variable refresh rates (VRR) back in April, anyone attempting to stream games on a better-than-average PC monitor has not been able to (1440p often being standard for these monitors). Now, however, players will be able to run a 1440p-supporting game at its native resolution; for games with a higher native resolution like 4K, the blog post says that players “may benefit from improved anti-aliasing through supersampling down to 1440p output,” effectively making the game and image smoother. However, there is a small asterisked footnote that any PS5 VRR capabilities still only support 1080p or 4K, not 1440p.
The second largest update comes in the form of what are basically folders; called “Gamelists,” the PS5’s Game Library will now allow players to organize their games into specific folders, granting more customization options than ever seen with a PlayStation. Starting at “Your Collection” and selecting “Create Gamelist,” players have the opportunity to create up to 15 gamelists with 100 games per list – any game in “Your Collection,” whether disc, digital, or streaming, can be added to any gamelist. Additionally, you can add the same game to multiple gamelists.
The PS5 beta will also grant a few smaller improvements fans have been asking for, mostly regarding online interactions. In addition to accessing a new friend’s profile from the “Accepted Requests” menu and sending stickers and voice messages in Game Base, players can request that anyone in their party “Share Screen” and now have the option to join a game directly from the invite notification. To make jumping back into games more seamless, PS5 is adding in-progress activities to the top of the game hub, making it “as easy and as fast as possible to get back to where you left off.” Finally, the single change on the audio side will allow players to listen to and compare 3D audio and stereo audio, deciding which one works best for their set-up. While this update may seem underwhelming, several of the changes, particularly 1440p support, are features fans have been clamoring for. However, anyone not invited or living in those selected countries will most likely have to wait to the end of the year to see any of these go live, according to the blog post.