We love the PS5; obviously we do, or else we wouldn’t have started an entire website dedicated to it. Sony’s current-gen console looks wonderful, runs silently, and has one of the best controllers gaming has ever produced. With that said, there are still, unfortunately, things that the PS5 can’t do. We can’t pretend the PS5 is perfect, and although Sony has gotten damn close to our ideal console, we’re still just a little disappointed with some of the things it’s missing. Here are 10 features we wish the PS5 had.
1. A web browser
We know that the PS5 doesn’t have a web browser because Sony doesn’t think it’s a vital inclusion for a next-gen machine, but we still wish it had one. We used to use our PS4 to play bingo online and have fun on the weekend (no, really, we did, and it worked really well). While the PS5 does technically have a rudimentary web browser built into it, you can’t access it from the user end, meaning you won’t be able to easily browse the web on your new PS5.
2. Playing PS3 games
The next few points are going to be dedicated to backwards compatibility, because the only way you can access older PlayStation games is via the PlayStation Now streaming service. We want the PS5 to play our old PS3 library; we’ve still got a lot of games for that machine saved up, and we can’t play them on our new console. Inserting a PS3 disc into the PS5 will do absolutely nothing, meaning that many games are simply unplayable on the machine.
3. Playing PS2 games
Many PS2 games are available on PS5 via PS4 store updates, but this isn’t the same as being able to insert our PS2 discs and play them natively. At the moment, there are rumours flying around that the PS5 will soon be able to play classic games thanks to a subscription service, but right now, you can’t put PS2 discs into the PS5 and expect anything to happen. That means your copies of underrated classics like Second Sight or Rise of the Kasai are essentially useless unless your PS2 is hooked up.
4. Playing PS1 games
Finally, there’s no way to natively play PS1 games on PS5, and this is more of an issue than the aforementioned games because there’s also no way to play them via the store or via PlayStation Now. As it stands, the PSOne Classic is the only method for playing PS1 games, unless they’re also available via PC (like Metal Gear Solid). The PS5’s disdain for retro gaming could be our least favourite thing about the PS5, so we hope Sony sees sense sometime soon.
5. Switching off Activity Cards on the UI
Activity Cards are a way to keep track of your progress on PS5 games, and most native PS5 titles will support them. However, there’s no way to turn them off at present, which is an issue because some of them contain minor spoilers. As an example, there are chapter cards for Resident Evil Village that inform you how far you are through the game, which is information that could be potentially immersion-breaking. We want a way to turn them off in a future update.
6. A PlayStation Game Pass subscription
This one isn’t so much a point against the PS5 itself as it is one against Sony’s ecosystem. We want to see the company introduce a Game Pass-style subscription service to compete with Microsoft. There is the PlayStation Plus Collection, but this can’t hold a candle to the diversity and quality of Game Pass titles; only PS5 owners can access it, and it contains games that are, for the most part, a few years old. PlayStation will need to introduce a Game Pass-style service if it wants to stay competitive.
7. Quick Resume
The Quick Resume feature is one of the Xbox ecosystem’s secret weapons. It lets you suspend multiple games and resume them practically immediately, meaning you don’t need to wait for loading times while you resume where you left off. The PS5 doesn’t currently allow you to do anything similar; while it does have a game suspend feature, it’s nowhere near as satisfying or intuitive as the Xbox’s alternative, so we want to see Sony introduce something like this soon.
8. Extra storage space
You’ll fill up the PS5’s 667GB of available space within just a few games, and once you’ve done so, you’ll be annoyed that it doesn’t have any extra space available. Of course, you can expand it with extra drives, but you’ll have to spend a fair bit of money if you want to be able to play games from the drive itself. If you’re the kind of person who keeps a lot of games installed and cycles through them regularly, then the PS5’s lack of space can be a real issue.
9. Themes
Right now, you can’t change the default theme on your PS5, which makes the console’s home screen feel a little barren and joyless. We got a little thrill every time we booted up our PS4 and saw the familiar Dark Souls 3 theme complete with the excellent Yuka Kitamura score, so the fact that we can’t do this on the PS5 feels like a step back. We’re hoping Sony implements some themes soon, because games like Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and Guardians of the Galaxy are crying out for themes.
10. Folders
While we’re at it, we want to see the option to organise our content into folders. The fact that we can’t do this is maddening; there are games we want to sort into categories, but as it stands, they’re all just sitting on the home screen without any kind of categorisation or sorting mechanism, which makes the UI feel messy and cluttered. Hopefully, Sony is planning to introduce folders sometime soon, because it’s annoying that this otherwise excellent console doesn’t have a feature that was standard on both PS3 and PS4.
