PlayStation Clarifies Home Screen Ads Mishap as Technical Blunder

Sony has responded to numerous fan complaints following the recent rollout of a PS5 update that led to its home screen getting populated with numerous promotional materials.

Sony Says It Has Resolved Unintended Error with PS5 AdsPlayStation Fans Annoyed at Initial Update

Posting on Twitter (X) today, Sony said it has resolved a tech with the official news feature on the PS5 consoles. "A tech error with the Official News feature on the PS5 console has since been resolved," the company wrote on social media. "There have been no changes to the way game news is displayed on PS5."

Prior to this, Sony was on the receiving of the ire of its user base for pushing out an update on the PlayStation 5 that resulted in the console's home screen displaying ads and promotional art, as well as outdated news. Apart from the promotional artworks, the console's home screen displayed promotional article headlines that occupied a sizeable part of the screen. Yesterday, PS5 users took to the internet to express their annoyance following Sony's update to the PS5 homescreen. The changes were believed to have been slowly integrated over the past few weeks, and was fully completed following the update.

PlayStation 5's home screen now reportedly shows art and news related to a game the user focuses on. While Sony had addressed its users' complaints, some still hold that this is a "terrible decision" overall. One user commented on social media, " checked my other games and they had it as well and most of the background images have changed to these shitty thumbnails from the news and covers up the unique art that made each game feel like it had its own 'theme.' Terrible decision and I hope this gets changed or a way to opt out quickly. At least with the explore tab I could ignore it and not have it infect every game I 'own.'" Another one wrote, "It's weird people are defending this. Who wants to spend $500 to be bombarded with ads they didn't ask for?"