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Update, September 30, 2024, 6:34 pm ET: It appears that the new home screen experience that users were reporting today was the result of a bug that was fixed. On September 30 at 6 pm ET today, the AskPlayStation X account wrote:
“A technical error with the official news feature on the PS5 console has since been resolved. There have been no changes to the way in-game news is displayed on PS5.”
Users say they no longer see ads or other confusing content on their home screens, as described below.
Original article below:
PlayStation 5 owners are reporting ads on the device's home screen. Frustratingly, the ads seem quite difficult to disable and some are also outdated ads and/or confusing content.
The ads, visible on users' home screens when they hover over a game title, can only be removed if they disconnect from the Internet, Agency reported today. However, that would block many of the console's functions. The PS5 dashboard previously had ads, but not on the home screen.
Before this recent development, people would see game art if they hovered over a game icon on the PS5 home screen. Now doing so supposedly brings up outdated ads. For example, Agency reported seeing an ad for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse “Coming soon exclusively in theaters” when you hover over the Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales game. Webheads will of course remember that the Spider-Verse movie was released in June 2023.
Similarly, go to NBA 2K25 Reportedly showing an ad to get early access. But the game came out earlier this month.
According to Agency, it looks like the console is “incorporating the latest news for each game, whether it's a YouTube video, patch notes, or even the announcement of a completely different game.” That means that not all games show ads. Instead, some show an image from a YouTube video about the game or a note about patch notes or game updates.
There also seems to be some confusion: MP1st reported seeing an advertisement for the LEGO Horizon Adventures game by hovering over the icon Horizon Zero Dawn. The publication wrote: “The announcement also makes[s it] a little confusing, since… it seems like you're playing LEGO Horizon Adventures and not the current “We are in the Horizon game.”
Some games, like Astrobothowever, they do not appear to be affected by the changes, according to Agency.
Upset and confused
“As someone who plays the Spiderman series now, this confused the hell out of me,” Crack_an_ag said via Reddit.
Others urge Sony to remove the feature or fix it so it can be useful, while others argue that the feature couldn't be useful anyway.
“Forcing every game to include their latest news in the board layout is SO stupid since no game uses the news feature consistently,” wrote Reddit user jackcos.
Meanwhile, Sam88FPS noted that the ads brought them from Xbox to PlayStation:
One of the main reasons I walked away from Xbox was the fact that they started building the Xbox UI around ads and publicity. [Game Pass]. Hopefully Sony listens more because Xbox flatly refused to do so; in fact they even added full screen splash ads lmao.
It is unclear what exactly caused this change. Some suspect it is related to firmware update 06.24-10.00.00. But that update came out on September 12, and as Agency noted, the patch notes don't say anything about it. Given the obvious issues and the mix of content being generated, it's possible that Sony is fixing some issues and that eventually the content displayed on users' home screens will become more relevant or consistent. The change also came a few days after a developer claimed that Sony lost $400 million after removing the Concord online game after just two weeks, prompting criticism of Sony and unconfirmed theories that Sony is trying to make up for financial losses with ads.
Ars Technica contacted Sony to explain why it decided to add non-removable ads to the PS5's home screen and about the outdated and disconcerting content displayed. We will let you know if we receive a response.