Overnight Sony lifted the lid (well, it did exactly that with the recent PS5 console teardown) on the PlayStation 5 User Experience - i.e. the UI, OS, thing you see when you power-up the console. In terms of look the Home Screen expands on what arrived with the PS4 but thanks to new integration that leverages the PS5's horsepower the new Control Center offers intuitive access to social features and more.

Like being able to jump into specific levels and points of interest with added Trophy/completionist integration along the lines of "Yo my dude, you've only completed 68% of this bit". Thanks to the new super-fast SSD storage and data wizardry one press of a button and you'll jump to that in-game section in seconds.

Here's the full User Experience presentation.



"Activities are displayed via on-screen cards in the Control Center, which enables you to discover new gameplay opportunities, go back to things you missed, jump directly into levels or challenges you want to play, and much more," writes Hideaki Nishino, Senior Vice President, Platform Planning & Management for PlayStation. "Some Activity cards can be put in picture-in-picture mode, so you can view them without having to leave the game."

That picture-in-picture mode extends to parties where you can now share your screen ala Discord. The key thing here is that the Control Center serves as a fast and seamless overlay for all the big features without ever having to head back to the Home Screen. In terms of the Home Screen the presentation buries the lead a bit, with the new 4K UI for that showcased deep into the PS5 UI deep-dive.

For those that collect trophies like some sort of track and field star the Control Center can also display hints and video-guides too - an interesting feature that developers can tap into.

Finally, the PlayStation Store is no longer a dedicated app so you can jump into and browse all the new stuff and PS Plus goodies without waiting on log-ins and loading. No doubt it's a slick and quick UI and OS with a design that feels quintessentially PlayStation.