Turning off the PlayStation 4 was a piece of cake. You’d hold down the PS button, manoeuvre to the “Power” menu, and click “Turn off.” After years with the system, it likely became second-nature: hold PS, down, right, down, X. You could probably do it with your eyes closed — or, more likely, and more helpfully, with the TV off.
The process to turn off the PlayStation 5 isn’t difficult, per se, but it sure is different. With Sony’s new console, you can’t hold down the PS button to shut it down. You have to hit the PS button — tap, not hold — and scroll to the power icon, all the way on the right side of the functions bar that pops up. Clicking on that icon will pull up a slate of familiar power options, where you can put your PS5 in rest mode, turn it off, or restart it.
But there’s a faster method. Just do what Derek Zoolander could not and go left.
We at Kotaku received units to test some weeks back. The new way of doing things was among a handful of initial quirks that tripped us up. But, like Eratosthenes or Magellan or whoever is officially credited with figuring out that the world isn’t flat, we quickly figured out you could go the long (short?) way around. The PS5’s control centre is a circumnavigational tool, not a static, linear one, so tabbing left from the home icon will take you to the power icon.
Of course, this spits in the face of years of muscle memory. There’s also the matter of the control centre itself. When you hit the PS button, you’ll have to scroll down from a news icon to get to the main function bar. In other words, your new muscle-memory method should be this: tap PS, down, left, X, down, X. Easy, right? (If you just want to put your PS5 into rest mode — which will suspend any open games, download update files, and charge any plugged-in controllers — skip that second “down.”)
If you’re some sort of rebel, I suppose you could also just unplug the power cord, but the system will irritably beep at you when you plug it back in. You’ll also get the requisite warning about how that was a bad idea and how you shouldn’t have done that, with, oddly, some undertones about how you should drop and give Sony 50? I haven’t bought into that last one yet. Don’t think I could if I wanted to.
There’s a whole lot to learn about this new machine, including how to automatically invert your Y-axis and to (finally!) check your playtime stats. For a comprehensive rundown of all the starter stuff you should know — and for a place to share some of your own discoveries — don’t miss our big tips post about the PS5.
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[referenced id=”1192910″ url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/11/ps5-15-tips-to-make-the-most/” thumb=”https://www.gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/11/13/jqqh7iqp8g9gmuk1fl8t-300×169.jpg” title=”15 Tips To Make The Most Of Your New PS5″ excerpt=”With the launch of the PS5, “next-gen” is no longer a thing of the future. We’re officially in current-gen territory now. But every period of novelty brings a period of learning — about new features, new functions, and new ways to play games. It can be a lot to take…”]
[referenced id=”1193085″ url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/11/over-100-backward-compatible-ps4-games-might-have-some-issues-on-ps5/” thumb=”https://www.gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/11/14/zoyo5e03hv3kfaq8xfoy-300×169.png” title=”Over 100 Backward Compatible PS4 Games Might Have Some Issues On PS5″ excerpt=”Though the vast majority of the 4,000+ PS4 game catalogue works without a hitch on the new PlayStation 5, around 115 games in the US PlayStation Store are tagged with a warning: “When playing on PS5, this game may exhibit errors or unexpected behaviour and some features available on PS4…”]
[referenced id=”1193075″ url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/11/the-ps5-music-is-a-whole-existential-mood/” thumb=”https://www.gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/11/14/gp5hl3ocbylnj6eothqz-300×169.png” title=”The PS5 Music Is A Whole Existential Mood” excerpt=”Last night I set up my PS5, started to download some games, and was immediately sucked through a haunting wormhole of self reflection by the next-gen system’s brooding menu music.”]
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