Sony continues to take important steps to prepare the PS5 for the future. The new system update released today for beta users heralded two critical innovations. These features are of significant interest to both gamers looking to lower their bills and those who game on multiple devices.

PS5 Will Sacrifice Performance for Lower Power Consumption

The most notable innovation is Power Saving Mode. When enabled, supported games will run at lower performance, significantly reducing the amount of electricity the PS5 consumes. Shuzo Kikuchi, Vice President of Product Management at Sony Interactive Entertainment, confirmed that the feature is not yet active in the beta but will be available to players with the official release.

Kikuchi stated, “When players optionally enable this feature, the performance of supported PS5 games will be reduced, thereby reducing the power consumption of your PS5.” Details such as which games will support this mode and the extent of its performance impact are expected to be shared closer to the official launch.

While this move is part of Sony’s environmentally friendly policies, it’s being interpreted in tech circles as a precursor to a larger strategy. Such a power-saving mode is believed to be crucial for the long-rumored PlayStation handheld console (Project Q), which is expected to stream PS5 games.

Because low power consumption directly impacts a portable device’s battery life, Sony is likely already encouraging developers to add different performance modes to their games. This is similar to Microsoft’s strategy of requiring developers to offer multiple performance modes for the Xbox Series S console.

The most concrete innovation currently available in the beta update concerns the DualSense. It will now be possible to pair a single DualSense controller with up to four different devices simultaneously, allowing players to easily switch between their PS5, PC, mobile device, or tablet.

Switching is also quite intuitive. Players can instantly switch between devices by holding down the PS button on the controller and pressing one of the triangle, circle, cross, or square buttons for each of the four pre-assigned device slots.

DualSense’s multi-device support is currently available to test by users participating in the beta program. Power Saving Mode is expected to be available in a stable, public system update in the coming months. These innovations demonstrate Sony’s commitment to making the PS5 experience both more efficient and flexible.