The PlayStation 5 now has an advert system built into the dashboard user interface you can’t disable without disconnecting from the internet.
Users noticed how hovering over a video game icon on the homepage now forces an advert to replace the unique art — as close to a theme as the PS5 gets.
What appears to be happening is the PS5 is pulling in the latest news for each game, whether it be a YouTube video, patch notes, or even the announcement of a different game entirely.
However, some users have critisized the move for replacing main video game images on the homepage with what are in some cases outdated adverts.
IGN’s testing shows the latest promotional Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 video released by publisher Focus Entertainment has replaced the art of protagonist Titus in the background of the homescreen.
Black Myth: Wukong, meanwhile, now forces an image signaling the latest patch notes.
And Call of Duty promotes The Haunting update for Season 6.
Other users have reported particularly confusing ads. MP1st showed how an ad for the upcoming Lego Horizon Adventures takes up the background when selecting Horizon Zero Dawn, making it look like you’re about to play a game that’s not out yet.
Perhaps most annoying of all, some of the latest news the PS5 is pulling from is significantly out of date, which may confuse some less clued up users. For example, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales brute-forces an advertisement for the “coming soon” movie theatre release of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which actually came out in June 2023.
NBA 2K25, meanwhile, showcases an ad for early access to the game, which is now nearly a month old.
Bizarrely, some games do not use the new advert system (perhaps there’s no latest news to pull from). The recently released Astro Bot, for example, is spared for now, as is Yakuza Kiwami 2.
The PlayStation dashboard has featured ads for years now, but mostly those were relegated to the PlayStation Store itself. This new homescreen feature is new, though. Similarly, Microsoft’s Xbox dashboard is littered with ads, but at least its console supports themes that take priority on the homescreen background.
There is some speculation that Sony added this feature as part of the PS5’s recent Welcome Hub firmware update, but there was no mention of it in the patch notes. Either way, it’s fair to say core PS5 users aren’t massive fans of the intrusion.
“There definitely should be a way to disable this,” redditor mikelman999 said. “I get its usefulness in modern games that are still getting updated but since it just displays the newest “news” item it’s a lot more problematic with older titles. It just ends up covering your screen with irrelevant information that’s potentially a decade out of date.”
“Terrible decision and I hope this gets changed or a way to opt out quickly,” said ConcreteSnake. “At least with the explore tab I could ignore it and not have it infect every game I ‘own’.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.