If for some reason you liked the PS5's accolades feature, then you're in for a bit of bad news: Sony is axing it from the console soon.
Sony's Playstation 5 logo is seen at an electronics store in Tokyo on November 10, 2020, ahead of the gaming console's release scheduled for November 12. (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
As reported by GamesRadar, the tech and gaming giant expected PS5 Accolades to be far more popular than it currently is. But it wasn't, and it turned out a lot of people didn't even really care that it was there. As such, it has now been announced that Accolades will be removed sometime in Fall 2022. Sony didn't give an exact date, though.
The official announcement was made in a recent post on the PlayStation website. Sony's exact words about the axing the feature are as follows:
"The feature hasn't seen the level of usage we anticipated, so we are refocusing our efforts. We encourage the community to continue to send positive messages to one another."
For the unaware, PS5 Accolades are Sony's way of trying to foster a more inclusive, less toxic online gaming community. It works by letting players earn or give props to someone anonymously after they've done great in an online match. All of the Accolades players earn will be displayed on their profile, and are separated into these categories: Helpful, Good Sport, and Welcoming (via The Sixth Axis).
Giving an Accolade on PlayStation 5 is quite straightforward. If you wanted to commend a teammate or an opponent for a job well done, you press R3 to give it to the player you think deserves one. This is how it's done on Call Of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, as shared by YouTuber VVaby:
But perhaps Sony finally understood that some games already have a similar system built in, so players aren't actively looking for this PlayStation 5-specific feature anyway. Overwatch is an excellent example with its Endorsements system, among others. Plus, maybe scrapping PS5 Accolades could finally help Sony focus on bigger problems with their current-gen console, which brings us to the next part of this article.
Read Also: Best Gaming GPU 2022: Here Are The Ones You Should Get
Maybe Fix The Broken PS4 to PS5 Upgrade System, Sony?
So resources are no longer being spent to maintain PS5 Accolades. And we have a great idea as to where these resources and manpower should be spent: fixing the darn PS4 to PS5 game upgrades feature that until now is pretty broken.
Detail of the logo on a Sony PlayStation 5 home video game console, taken on October 29, 2020
Several PS4 games have already gotten either free or paid upgrades to their PS5 versions. But even if you already got the upgraded version of these games, inserting the original PS4 disc will still install the last-gen version of the game alongside the new-gen one.
A current workaround for this bug is just deleting the PS4 version of the game as it installs after you insert the disc. But this is not a convenient workaround, as you have to do this every single time you insert the PS4 disc to play the PS5 version of a game you already own. And if you don't know of the workaround, you're unknowingly filling your console's internal storage - which is bad because the PlayStation 5 only has 825 GB of usable space to begin with.
Fix this bug, Sony. It's been almost two years.
Related Article: PS5 1440p Support Is Being Beta-Tested Right Now
