While we’ve seen the detailed structure of the PS5 and a vast portion of its game library, we still have some significant questions: when is it going to be released? How much would that cost? And what kind of GUI does the device look like? Finally, we have some information about the last question, courtesy to Matt MacLaurin, PlayStation’s vice president of UX design. MacLaurin has disclosed slight snippets on how the PS5’s home page and menus will work and we’ve already seen the first glimpse of it in action.
Evidence comes from a forum on LinkedIn where MacLaurin responded to questions from other business experts and addressed the overwhelming majority of them, quite amazingly. Most of the responses from MacLaurin were short and cryptic, but his comments on the interface of the PS5 gave a good indication of what to expect.
Although the interfaces for PS1 and PS2 were somewhat restricted, the PS3 needed to handle disc games, downloaded content, social services, internet access, and link to Sony’s portable consoles. Some of the same features will be accomplished with PS4, including Remote Play and VR interfaces. As such, both the PS3 and the PS4 depended on scrollable horizontal menus to display choices in a clear, uncluttered manner. Neither the PS3 nor the PS4 has a particularly fantastic interface, but they do make finding your games and media convenient.
There’s not much to go on with a single startup page, but we can derive a couple of items from that, as well as comments from MacLaurin. The interface would not just look like the PS4’s, but this will probably retain the streamlined approach of PS4. With further PS5 announcements and showcases expected in the run-up to the holiday release of the console, we should have our first official look at the functionality and the interface.
Sony PS5 is set to go on sale in late 2020. There will be a variant with a Blu-ray Ultra HD display and the first all-digital version that dispenses with an optical disk. The price has yet to be declared.
