PS5 homescreen is now filling up with ugly, outdated ads and promotional art

UPDATE 1/10/24: Sony has responded to complaints around a recent PlayStation 5 update festooning the console’s homescreen with promotional art and outdated news, blaming the now “resolved” incident on an unintended “tech error”.

“A tech error with the Official News feature on the PS5 console has since been resolved,” the company wrote on its Ask PlayStation social media feed, adding, “There have been no changes to the way game news is displayed on PS5.”

ORIGINAL STORY 30/9/24: PS5 owners are reporting emotions ranging from mildly miffed to deep-seated annoyance following Sony’s decision to plaster the console’s homescreen with ugly artwork and often irrelevant promotional news stories following its latest update.

The changes – which appear to have been slowly rolled out over the last few weeks, gaining attention on social media this weekend – mean the PS5 now prominently displays promotional article headlines across the centre of its homescreen alongside full-sized background images, based on whatever happens to be top of the currently selected game’s newsfeed.

Now, rather than displaying aesthetically pleasing artwork when a game is highlighted as was previously the case, PlayStation 5’s homescreen is a chaotic mishmash of random, busy promotional art (sometimes fighting against the existing UI) and drastically out-of-date news stories – which, in some cases, are only tangentially related to the chosen game.

Horizon Zero Dawn, for instance, now, somewhat confusingly, displays a huge Lego Aloy image when the game is selected, with the most prominent bit of text onscreen reading, “Lego Horizon Adventures“. Some titles display promotions long past their expiration date or encouragement for a user to buy the very game they already own – while still others have somehow escaped the changes, displaying the old art just as they once did.

Home screen ads aren’t exactly a rarity, of course, but Sony’s implementation is a bit of a mess – not helped by the fact it seemingly can only be disabled by disconnecting the PS5 from the internet. And as users begin to familiarise themselves with the changes, they’re being met with an understandable degree of discontent. “I’m starting to feel alienated by PlayStation’s choices,” wrote I_pee_in_shower over on the PlayStation 5 subreddit, “I don’t want ads, games as service or to rebuy my console halfway though cycle.”

“This update sucks,” added the (clearly less than cheery) cheer_up_crewcut
. “Gone is the nice artwork when you hover over the game, and you just get the stupid news articles instead. Some of them are really low-res too and it looks really ugly. Makes the home screen look terrible.

Whether Sony chooses to listen to customer pleas and rolls back the changes remains to be seen, but with a £700 new console looming, an unhappy player base probably isn’t ideal.