PlayStation 5 new system update rolls out with tons of new features and improvements

This is a pleasant morning surprise. Sony has just announced details of the PlayStation 5’s latest update but hold your horses, it’s in beta testing so it’s not available to all just yet.

The update is being rolled out to “invited participants in select countries” with those countries identified as the US, Canada, Japan, UK, Germany, and France, so if you do reside in one of those aforementioned locales, it’s well worth checking to see if you’re one of the lucky invitees. Sony has stated that all participants will be informed via email today, letting them know when the update is ready to download. It’s expected that the update will then roll out globally “in the coming months” with the asterisk that features may change as a result of the beta testing. But what’s in the update exactly, I hear you ask?

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The first change regards the PS5’s DualSense controller, bringing various enhancements to its built-in mic and speakers. The controller will be able to produce higher volume sounds, “allowing you to hear in-game sounds and voice chat more clearly”, and noise cancellation has been improved thanks to a new AI machine learning model. This suppresses background noise from button presses as well as game audio resulting in a much cleaner voice chat experience. The update notes advise that if the DualSense speaker becomes too loud following the installation of the update, you can adjust the speaker volume from your console’s control centre.

Moving on to Share Screen interactions, players watching Share Screen in fullscreen mode can now use pointers and emoji reactions to interact with a host’s gameplay. This means viewers can move a pointer around, ping a location, draw lines, or highlight certain objects to help guide the host player. Emojis are said to “visually encourage and celebrate gameplay actions”. In order to access this feature, for now, both the host and viewer need to have the beta installed.

Finally, the update allows you to adjust the brightness of your PS5’s power indicator. To do so, go to settings, followed by system, select Beep and Light, and then Brightness. From here, you’ll now be able to select from dim, medium, and bright (standard). All in all, it sounds like a great update with some subtle but useful quality-of-life changes.