The first major update for the PlayStation 5 console is due to land on Wednesday, April 14, and among the additions and improvements to the console are the ability to keep games on USB storage, new social features, and changes to the PlayStation app.
Sony announced the update on the PlayStation Blog, saying that while USB drives would allow users to store games, you won’t be allowed to download them there directly nor play games off them (though with the console designed around an SSD drive that’s hardly a surprise).
Cross-generational Share Play is another cool addition, described as:
PS4 and PS5 players can now Share Play together while chatting in parties. This means PS5 console users can let their friends on PS4 consoles view their game screen, or even try out the PS5 games through Share Play, and vice versa. Options include the ability to share your screen with a friend, pass your controller virtually to a friend, or pass a second controller virtually to play co-op games together.
There are also some tweaks to the core experience, like the ability to mute people in voice (and even adjust individual participants’ volumes in a group chat), organise your library better and, very nicely, allow game updates to pre-download automatically in the background (provided developers enable the feature).
Changes are coming to the PlayStation app as well, with new features that will let you, “[M]anage your PS5 console storage, compare trophy collections with friends, and sort and filter products shown in the PlayStation Store.” You’ll also be able to join multiplayer sessions directly from the app.
The update goes live on Wednesday, April 14.
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