PlayStation 4 system update 2.50 arrives tomorrow, March 26, and it lets you jump right back into a game from rest mode.
The major update — dubbed “Yukimara” — enables the suspend-and-resume feature that Sony first promised two years ago. The missing feature, already present on the PS4’s big rival, Xbox One, hasn’t exactly hurt hardware sales — PS4 is Sony’s fastest-selling console with over 20.2 million systems sold — but gamers will certainly welcome its arrival.
Suspend and resume lets players leave a game midsession, place their console in the low-power rest mode, and then jump straight back in when they power back on. It’s a big step toward making console gaming more immediate and accessible, but there’s a small caveat attached: The PlayStation Blog notes that the capability to suspend and resume isn’t fully supported by “some software titles.”
System update 2.50 also brings the capability to back up your console’s data on an external USB drive, including games, save data, video clips, and screenshots.
Yukimara also improves the PS4’s social connectivity, making it easier to form chat parties and find friends online.
The update will please trophy-hunters with its automatic screenshot feature that triggers whenever you earn a trophy in a game. The ability to delete games from your list that you haven’t earned any trophies for will also help tidy things up.
You can read the full details of the update on the PlayStation Blog.