Codenamed Shingen, the grand system update will bring with it a refreshed system UI, easier organization, updates to the Quick Menu, and plenty more.
According to the PlayStation blog, the PS4’s main user interface will see a ton of adjustments and improvements, including new system backgrounds, and a retooled What’s New tab, as well subtle changes such as redesigned icons.
It was stressed that the ‘overall look and feel of the UI remains the same’ – but a fresh paint of coat goes a long way.
The Quick Menu, meanwhile, has been overhauled to be faster, easier to use, and no longer forces you to entirely exit game play. Check out the picture below, and you may notice several new items have also been added.
The Share Menu has also been subjected to the same streamlined treatment as the Quick Menu.
Uploading and sharing screenshots and videos should now (hopefully) be a little less of a pain, and users will now be able to upload longer clips to Twitter (up to 140 seconds from 10).
The ability to categorize games and apps into folders is also on the way, making for a less cluttered home screen and creating an easier way to get to what you want.
There’ll also be some welcome changes to the Library:
We’ve added a new tab called Purchased, which will show all of the content you own — games, applications, demos, and betas you’ve participated in. As a result, the Games and Applications tabs focus on content currently installed on your system. This should help de-clutter your library, and make it faster to find the content you’re looking for.
You’ll also (finally) be able to look at your precious trophies without an internet connection, while the icons that indicate how rare a trophy is are being changed up in favour of a pyramid, with the rarest trophies at the top.
Sony promises that the update has even more features that’ll be present at launch but won’t be included inthe beta, but it’s keeping mum on those for now.
We can expect to learn more info on 4.00 – as well as an official release date – in the ‘coming weeks’.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.