New PS5 system update now available – but don't get too excited

09 November 2023 , 18:00

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The new PS5 update isn't explained on the system itself, so here's what we know (Image: Sony)

PS5 owners were treated to a brand new system update this week, but what's new? Here's what we know.

Sony released a brand new system update for PS5 earlier this week, and as per usual, there's no actual explanation on the console itself about what the update does. This has led players to wonder what this 851MB update is actually for. We've done some digging ourselves to try and find out what exactly this new update changes.

The short answer is that this is a stability update. A pretty standard and common thing for PlayStation consoles. But we have some theories about what this update could be for below. Including the full update notes from Sony itself. The good news is, this doesn't seem to be a mandatory update, so you can safely ignore it and continue playing if you so please.

PS5 23.02-08.20.02 system update notes

The following is the full list of update notes released by Sony on the official PlayStation website for update 23.02-08.20.02. Strap yourselves in because it's a huge one:

• This system software update improves system performance.

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If you're still with us after that frankly gargantuan batch of update notes, we'll try and speculate on what this means. Sony puts out a lot of PlayStation updates like this that don't have any noticeable changes, and this is just another one of those. These can be for a manner of reasons, like preventing potential exploits – which could turn lead to preventing potential piracy measures on the system.

However, if we had to guess, we imagine that'll probably be an update in preparation for the PS5 Slim launching later this month. While the slim variant is still the same console for the most part, new features like the detachable disk drive may require some updates to ensure the new variant launches smoothly.

There's also Sony's new gaming portable device, the PlayStation Portal, which is set to launch next week on Wednesday, November 15. Considering the device is designed to work alongside a PS5 to stream games to the handheld, there's a chance Sony is introducing some behind-the-scenes improvements to the console to prepare it for the launch of the brand-new handheld.

Scott McCrae