PS5 aims to be the gaming equivalent of Netflix, not in the sense of streaming games over the Internet like Google Stadia (see our review of Google Stadia here), but in the ease and speed of using the popular video streaming service. (see our review of Google Stadia here), but rather the ease and speed of using popular video streaming services.

This is based on two recent news stories, one a patent found in the USPTO database detailing Sony's latest brainwave to improve user interface (UI) design, and the other by Kotaku's Jason Schreier, ResetEra's commentary on how Sony is persuading developers to work on games for new consoles.

First, there is Sony's patent. Dynamic interfaces for launching direct gameplay" application, originally discovered by PlayStation Universe, outlines a series of templates for the PlayStation's main menu. These templates allow developers to include game-specific options, allowing players to skip to specific parts of the game instead of launching the game menu or resuming from the point where they were last.

For example, in a single-player game, the player can replay a particular chapter of the campaign or view the currently open quest and its potential rewards. In multiplayer games, one can select a specific game type or view replays of matches without having to search through menus.

Schreier's brief comments on the game-centric forum ResetEra tell us that Sony is trying to sell the PS5 to game developers by comparing it to Netflix.

"One of the pitches they are making to developers is that 'playing PS5 games should be as easy as playing Netflix,'" Schreier wrote in his post.

"They want players to be able to load games quickly and know exactly how long certain activities will take. They want them to want to play in a short amount of time, rather than only wanting to turn on the console when they have a few hours to spare."

(Assuming this patent is implemented in the PS5 and not in later consoles.) Taken together, these two pieces of information suggest that Sony's new console encourages a new way of playing games. the PlayStation's goal is not to get you hooked on games rather, it is about "picking up" the game, playing the exact part of the game you want to play, and then switching to another section using a menu template.

We know that the PS5 cannot keep up with the Xbox Series X on a pure hardware power level, so ideas like this will help the PS5 maintain the PlayStation's market dominance. While it would be nice to have pretty ray-traced graphics, it would be far more beneficial to the majority of players to split up the games so that they can easily choose between them.