As much as it is a great defender of the physical formatI do not deny digital, especially knowing that not all indie games manage to make the leap to traditional stores. Besides that when they get it, many months pass and in digital it is already on sale, as it happened with Blasphemous, I couldn’t wait.
I’m one of those who take advantage of offers to buy lots of games that I had my eye on, however that task is no longer as satisfactory for a few months on PlayStation Store. And the fault is the arrival of PS5.
A redesign that has removed many features
Sony was already warning it at the end of last year, making it clear that before the month of November I would suppress the trace of old consoles of PlayStation (except PS4) of the digital store design. The objective? Make way for PS5 and unify your presence with PS4
What did this bring with it? A pot soon, not being able to buy PS3, PS Vita or PSP games from the web or even the app from PlayStation. Now it can only be done from these old consoles, going to the internal section of the PlayStation Store.
Goodbye to the possibility of filtering by console, for example, where it was previously easy to find best classics of the first PlayStation, although some were incomprehensibly hidden from the standard search. The worst of all? That with this redesign, we can’t even apply filters to PS4 or PS5 games, which is much more serious. Now we only have “Collections”.
This could have its pass, when divided by genres or by functions (VR, free, DLC or discounts, to name a few examples), but it turns out quite chaotic not being able to sort alphabetically or by price. And to top it all, they are mixed.
It doesn’t follow a logical pattern, seeing how it messes up even the episodes of a game, like Batman – The Telltale Series, without putting all the chapters in a row.
PlayStation Store needs another facelift
Worse I find deleting the wish list, when it was said that it would only affect PS3, PS Vita and PSP games. Now in PlayStation Store that function no longer exists, unless we go directly from PS5 to the internal store itself. In my case I was able to secure the first ones, but the PS4 ones I lost.
Nor does this redesign help to discover video games for PS4 or PS5, since now the tabs show neither images nor videos to get a better idea of what awaits us in each one. And to make matters worse, if a game has several editions, they all appear crowded there with the only option “add to cart”. But in reality, even the function of the cart has been modified.
Now if we click on “add to cart”, it will take us directly to the purchase of the product, displaying a bar on the right side to confirm the acquisition. It forces us, therefore, to have to cancel by clicking on the upper X to continue looking at more products until we have them all.
Ironically, this redesign dispenses with the classic sidebar, where we could apply filters at a stroke to see upcoming releases or what games had just come out recently. Failing that, it forces us to navigate through its home page, going down until we find the “New games” or “Very soon” section, with those that are close to their departure. And obviously, it takes much longer like this.
In fact, to be able to see the next releases, you have to swallow a huge promotion highlighted on the cover, the most relevant news and an advertising of PlayStation Now, before reaching that section. In case we bite with the “publi”.
How long will Sony take to correct those shortcomings? Hopefully little, although there are people who have sought solutions, such as a Chrome extension to have a Wishlist or with non-official stores that not only inform us of all the offers of the week at a stroke, but also show us the number of trophies for each game and when it would take to complete them, as is the case on the web PlatPrices, one of the best that I discovered together with PSprices, with wish lists and even notices when they drop in price. All a joy.
