A new UI update was released in March of 2018 and claimed to “enhance discoverability across Netflix, Hulu, PlayStation Vue, YouTube, and more”, but ultimately left me frustrated and baffled. Now when you scroll to your TV & Video section, you have to click on a “start” button before being taken to a second screen which is now a mishmash of app icons and featured content. It adds an extra step to a process that was originally seamless.

The recommended and featured content is a combination of tv shows, YouTube videos, and movies. I have yet to find any of it useful, as this is not how I like to browse content. The system shows me lots of things I’ve already watched within their respective apps, and also shows me apps I have no interest in ever browsing.

Before the update, if you were in one of the apps (let’s use Netflix as the example), you could just press the PS button on your controller and be taken right back to your list of video apps. This was helpful when switching between things like Netflix and YouTube, which I do a lot of. Now when you press the PS button, it takes you out of their new TV & Videos interface and back to the home screen where you have to click “start” again to access the content.

I understand PlayStation wanting to highlight and feature more video content, but by adding an extra step to a user’s experience, they’ve ultimately just made it more frustrating.