Our beloved PlayStation 5 not only offers a powerful catalog of games, they also provide us with different functions through its console that improve our experience.
Many of these functions are not very well known, but if we use them, we will enjoy every second in front of our console more.
playstation 5 has functions very interesting that allow us to improve our experience and make the most of this powerful gaming system. We are going to see those functions that are little known, but that, if used, could considerably improve our experience in those long gaming sessions.
Amazing PlayStation 5 features you have to use
playstation plus
We start with the most basic and important thing: PlayStation Plus. This is a fully optional premium subscription that has several benefits. With the basic level we are going to pay $9.99 per month and they will offer us free games every month (as long as we are subscribed), we will be able to access online multiplayer games, store discounts, cloud storage and access to PlayStation Plus Collection.
In case we can afford to pay a little more, for $14.99 per month we can unlock the next level that provides all of the above. Although in this case we can access a game catalog of everything we can find on PS4 and PS5. We will even get a subscription to Ubisoft+ Classics. This catalog adds new games constantly and removes some every month.
The last level comes for a cost of $17.99 where we can access tests of new games that have not been released, the catalog of PS1, PS2 and PSP classics, which run natively and several PS3 titles that are They run in the cloud.
These three levels have a trial period of one week where we will not be charged if you do not wish to continue. And in all cases we will find significant discounts if we contract for 3, 6 and 12 months.
remote play
This is a really interesting function, Remote Play allows us to transmit what we are playing on our PS5 to another device (Mac, PC, Android, iPhone or even a PS4). We can enable this from Settings> System> Remote Play. We are also going to have to enable the option to Stay connected to the internet and enable the PS5 start from the network in Settings> System> Energy saving> Functions available in rest mode.
From the Remote Play website we can download extra applications to transmit to a computer or mobile device. In the case of a PS4, we will have to have the latest version of the console software and use the Remote Play app.
How does it work? Locally and online using the PlayStation login to be able to link the console with other devices. Of course, this works much better with a local network connection via Ethernet cable. In case of having an unstable connection, we will suffer from latency, interruptions, etc.
upgradable storage
Xbox consoles have to use Microsoft proprietary expansion cards in order to get more internal storage. In the case of PlayStation 5, we have an M.2 slot that can be upgraded by us with which we can quickly increase the storage of our console using an NVMe drive. These types of drives are generally used in computers, so we could save a lot of money and find a greater variety of options.
Although there are some things that we must consider when choosing a unit to use in our PS5. These things are detailed on the Sony support page.
Screenshots and videos
The share button first appeared on the PS4 and on the PS5 it only made the experience better thanks to the Create button. We will find this button to the left of the touch panel and it gives us the opportunity to quickly access the Create, capture or record the gameplay menu.
With the mapping that comes by default, we will be able to use the Create button with a touch, take a screenshot by holding down or record a video by double-tapping the button. Everything we captured will appear in the Media Gallery app.
All of this can be modified from Settings > Captures and transmissions. When enabled, auto-upload sends files to Sony’s cloud, making them accessible from other devices like iPhone or Android.
Customize Control Center
One of the features of the PlayStation 5 that we liked the most is when we press the PS button and the Control Center appears. It would be a kind of quick menu with various shortcuts that are extremely useful. But best of all, we can customize it and make it more useful. Simply, we will have to press the PS button and access Options. We choose an icon and move it to the left or right, or we can press down to hide it completely.
Play with Share Play
Another of the PlayStation 5 functions is Share Play, which allows us to play with our friend as if he were sitting next to us. It works in two ways, it can be sharing local multiplayer experiences over the internet or letting them play as if they were us. Something very positive, because it gives our acquaintances the opportunity to try games before buying them.
This feature requires a PlayStation Plus membership (even the lowest) and is required, albeit an essential subscription. For it to work properly, Sony recommends having even a 2 Mbps connection (up and down). But he is more than sure that the better the connection, the better the result.
Share Play sessions last 60 minutes, although we can distribute them as many times as we want, it works on PS4 and PS5. In order to use Share Play, we will have to press the PS button on our controller, then we will go to Game Base and choose our friend. We will start a voice chat using the indicated button and then press start sharing.
Here we will be able to share our screen, let our friend play as us or play cooperatively from the sofa. Something very interesting about this mode is that we can use it for someone to help us overcome complicated levels of some games, among other things.
3D sound
Sony developed a proprietary solution that works with a huge number of devices, instead of making use of existing audio technology like Dolby Atmos.
3D audio works amazingly when we have headphones, which we can connect to our DualSense controller. Even, we don’t need to have Sony headphones to achieve this, we could use any third-party headphones to achieve it.
For this we are going to go to Settings> Sound> 3D audio for headphones to be able to activate and deactivate the configuration. Another thing we can do is enable our TV’s 3D audio or surround sound settings, usually found in Settings> Audio.
Control PS5 remotely
We can use the iPhone and Android application to control our console remotely. From our mobile device we can control the download of games and add-ons, buy new games, see notifications, chat, manage storage and use quick login.
Imagine that we are at a family dinner and the game we have been waiting for is published. We can download it while we are at dinner and when we get home, it will be ready to play.
hours of play
We can know how many hours we have spent on a specific game. For this we will have to choose our avatar from the start menu and then we go to Profile > Games to see all the time we have dedicated to the games we have available.
Game presets to set difficulty and more
Game Presets is a feature that was added to PlayStation 5 so that we don’t have to constantly change settings in supported games. From Settings > Saved data > Game / application settings > Settings, we can set common preferences for different games to avoid having to do it individually.
For example, we may choose to modify the graphics for better performance or quality, game difficulty, camera movement, whether the camera controls will be inverted or by default. We can even activate spoiler warnings, which will prevent certain game captures from appearing within the PS5 interface.
