Here’s your first look at the PlayStation 5’s interface
Today, in their latest State of Play video, Sony ran through a good chunk of the PlayStation 5’s user interface. The UI is a mix of evolution and revolution over the PS4’s design, with a diminishing emphasis on the cross media bar and more focus on the games being played.
In fact, that may be the majority of the experience. Sony is leveraging “cards” that overlay onto the screen when a game is paused as the home button is pressed, detailing news, info, and more about a game. This is intended to be like the current feed, but cleaner, and layered on top. The cards display things called “Activities,” which are personalized markers for the player. Activities detail things like achievements, percentage of completion of a section, and even an estimate about the amount of time needed to complete a specific action. Want to clear out another mission in a Sackboy level? That’ll be about 10 minutes, friend. Activity cards can even provide help, dropping hints about how to complete a task. Sony notes that this could save time, instead of going online to look at Gamefaqs.
The interface is also heavy on interaction with friends, allowing voice chat from fellow PS5 friends, and even friends on PS4 and mobile apps. Friends can share their game feeds, showing their active screens to others. The video can be watched and even pinned to the screen for picture-in-picture modes.
Sharing and capturing images and video is also a bigger part of the overall PlayStation experience, and inputting text into a message can be done via voice dictation with the controller’s embedded microphone.
More details are given in the video, but the big picture (pun intended) is that the UI is optimize for 4K screens and group sharing. The PS5 launches November 12th.
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