Key conclusions
- The latest PS5 UI update appears to have replaced the background for Game Hubs with full-screen ads.
- Games like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Elden Ring, Space Marine 2 and more replace their Game Hub background with the latest post from the PS5 news system.
- This often means that game centers now have ads running in the background, sometimes for the very game that PlayStation users are trying to play.
Over the years, the owners of platforms like PlayStation and Xbox have been less and less comfortable with turning our dashboards into piles of ads. Earlier this year, Xbox users began expressing their frustration with full-screen ads when loading their consoles, and while PlayStation users may have had a laugh at their expense, the PS5 is now doing the same.
PlayStation recently released a new UI update for the PS5, mostly focused on Game Hubs, the screens that appear whenever you hover over a specific game in the dashboard. Before the update, they usually had a piece of game art or a title screen to clearly indicate which game you were hovering over, and some set the mood before you jumped in.
The latest PS5 interface update annoys users with constant ads
This seems to have changed with the latest UI update as full screen ads are now displayed in various game hubs, sometimes advertises the same game you already own. A Twitter user named Alfredobofa have collected some of the worst examples from their console, with games like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Elden Ring now showing award screenshots, and Star Wars Battlefront 2 promoting several Star Wars games as part of Star Wars Day.
From what we can see, it looks like these giant ads can't be turned off, meaning PS5 users are now stuck with constant ads on their game centers. It also appears that Game Hub is removing its backgrounds from the News tab on PlayStation, which is the reason for the wildly different Game Hub backgrounds we're seeing at the moment.
This would also explain why older and smaller games are seemingly unaffected. For example, I have The Plucky Squire and Nier Automata installed on my PS5, but they don't show ads. However, more recent and larger releases such as Street Fighter 6, Final Fantasy 16, and Kunitsu-Gami showcase the latest news. The more major releases you play, the more you will be affected by these changes.
This is understandably causing a lot of irritation among PS5 users, who are calling the update an “objectively terrible change.” Others bemoan the loss of the PS4's theme system, which previously let you customize your background based on specific games. Why PlayStation decided to change this so suddenly remains a mystery, though the scale of the backlash may make this a temporary change. I hope it doesn't matter.
