PS4 Update 2.50 "Yukimura" Review

While the PlayStation 4’s update 2.50 is just now rolling out to PS4 users everywhere and adding some awesome features, I’ve had my hands on the beta version of this update for a few weeks now. In this feature-by-feature breakdown, I’ll let you know my thoughts on each piece of the update and how it either improved or hindered my overall console experience. Please note that this overview is in no way based on features that did not come with update 2.50. There may be features that were not included this time around, but my focus is on what the newest update did bring to the table.

Suspend/Resume

This is the biggest and most obvious feature of update 2.50, and it works like a dream. I have used this feature on a daily basis since I got my hands on this update. Being able to be back into your game within seconds at the exact point that you left off has altered my gaming habits, and it is literally seconds. No need to boot up the console, then sit through the main menu of the game, and then load your save file. Within seconds of pushing the PS button on your controller, you are staring at your character standing in the spot that you left them in the night before.

Update status Bar — A status bar briefly appears at the top when you resume your game.

If you don’t want to hassle with this feature, but still want to use rest mode, you can turn off the ability for your games to be suspended when putting the console into rest mode. If you power your console all the way off, you won’t be able to use suspend/resume, as rest mode’s low power state is required to hold the memory of where you left off, similar to how the Vita works. It may seem like a small thing, but it really cuts a lot of time off of both powering things down at the end of a play session, and booting the game back up at the start of your next play session.

Back-Up and Restore HDD to USB

I didn’t use this feature during my time with the beta, but it would have come in handy when I swapped out my hard drive a few months ago. As the system used to require you to individually back up saves and your capture gallery, not to mention not allowing you to save user settings, this will make for a much cleaner back-up and restore of your PS4 as you like it without having to go piece by piece.

Find and Connect With Friends

There are a variety of settings that streamline the social functions of the platform, and for those that use them, these will really help the ability to more easily connect. Clunky features like needing to real name request separately from a friend request are now a thing of the past. 2.50 makes it far easier to join up with friends who are playing games, in addition to shortening the process of creating a party chat.

An additional feature to this is finding Facebook friends that have PS4s as well. The number of times I’ve been shocked upon finding out one of my workplace friends owns a PS4 is climbing, and allowing me to connect quickly with everyone that I know who owns a PS4 is a pretty cool addition. For non-social gamers, these streamlined features won’t make any kind of difference, but I’ve found that my social gaming and sharing has massively increased this generation, and I welcome Sony making it easy to share and connect.

Trophy Sorting — Additional sorting options are added for trophies.

Trophy Updates

I just talked about my fondness for sharing, and this extends to new trophy sharing features as well. With each trophy earned now automatically taking a screenshot, you can very easily share your favorite accomplishments directly from your trophy list using the share button. There are no options that I can find to turn off the screenshots that are taken with each trophy, but to put things in perspective, each trophy screenshot is an average of 300 KB, so a full game’s trophy list worth of images takes up about 20 MB total, give or take. With that in mind, it would take fully earning 25 Platinum trophies before you would even reach a half of a gigabyte, so the effect on storage space is very minimal. You can also easily delete all of the images from your capture gallery (or delete specific selected ones), so you are not forced to hold onto them all if storage space is a concern.

And how can we forget deleting 0% trophy lists? This works like a charm and finally got rid of games that I played ages ago but never got a single trophy in. I’m sure many PS Plus users will be very happy to purge their trophy lists of games that they started up, realized wasn’t worth their time, and then never played again. It fully removes the list from the entire PSN, and as long as your consoles are synced, the lists are fully gone. I’ll be happy to never have to come across Free Realms or Alien vs. Predator anymore as I scan through my trophies earned.

Accessibility Options

There are a ton of accessibility features added through the latest update, and though they are not features that I personally use or need, the ability to customize so many aspects of the PlayStation for both people with disabilities as well as differing personal preferences is extremely progressive of Sony. Button remapping, text-to-speech, and a variety of display adjustments mean that you can tweak little settings to truly make the PS4 comfortable for your own needs. Next to suspend/resume, this is the biggest addition with this update, and will make the PS4 far more accessible to a variety of people, hence the name “accessibility options.”

Share Play/Remote Play Updates

Sadly the beta for 2.50 did not include the latest Vita firmware, and as I was warned before downloading it, I was not able to utilize Remote Play during the last few weeks. Now that the new Vita firmware is available, I look forward to seeing if the newest update makes any kind of significant difference in the quality of Remote Play. In regards to Share Play, I did not know anyone else in the beta, so I was unable to test if it was significantly improved between two players.

Much More

There are a variety of other smaller features that 2.50 adds, including subtle changes to how some of the menus look (much cleaner and more user friendly), giving the ability to set voice to “always allow” under broadcast settings in party chat, and other small adjustments.

I’ve been extremely satisfied with the changes that 2.50 brought to my PS4. The features that are added are ones that offer options and don’t force anything upon the user (aside from the trophy screenshots, but even that all takes place in the background). Providing options for players is generally what will win people over. Some people will find that 2.50 doesn’t change what they are doing with their PS4 at all, but fortunately the update doesn’t get in the way of continuing to use your PS4 as you have been already. All in all, I think most players will find 2.50 the options added to be a huge win for Sony and for themselves.

There are many features that I may have glazed over quickly or forgot to talk about, so if you have any questions about my experience with 2.50, feel free to ask me in the comments below, and I will attempt to answer to the best of my ability.