The long promised PlayStation Store overhaul is finally making its way into the wild. The redesign is hitting consoles Wednesday in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, though not without a hitch.
The most striking changes Sony made are to the store's look and structure. The update is more visually immersive, easier to navigate and cleanly scales from standard to high definition.
The store also adds a star-rating system and a "What's New" homepage to display fresh content.
Even though the store kept its tile-based "mosaic" style, images are much more prevalent. Plus, PlayStation visually emphasizes "heroes" or game protagonists on each page.
Finding games won't be a quest
The store is much easier to navigate so users can better find the types of content they want, while the store has less "dead ends" as Sony put more links between products so users won't have to back out of a lot of pages.
PlayStation improved sorting and filtering protocols to define categories of content better and make for a cleaner browsing experience.
Games have better product pages with more links and information on them that will help lead users to related content such as DLC and demos.
The store also does a better job of highlighting add-ons as it's easier to find additional game content and tell what games the content is related to.
Users have complained in the past when it comes to telling which games are for the PS Vita and the PSP.
The store now distinguishes content between the two more clearly, so users won't buy the wrong game for the wrong mobile platform.
Slow to start
With all the new updates also came a big slowdown. An increase in traffic slowed browsing to a syrupy swim.
Users also report problems with adding funds to their accounts and the sluggish store currently has a problem recognizing PlayStation Plus members.
As traffic to the site diminishes, the PlayStation Store should return to a quicker browsing pace. Hopefully, Sony will figure out how to smooth the kinks by the time the update comes to stateside Oct. 23.
Via PlayStation Blog, Engadget
