As a vocal supporter of Black Lives Matter – especially in the wake of George Floyd’s death earlier this year – Sony, alongside a number of other public-facing companies, has shown its solidarity with the movement on numerous occasions over the last few months or so. Most notably, the tech giant decided to push back a highly anticipated showcase event for its upcoming PlayStation 5 console in the summer, citing, at the time, current world events as being more important.
While critical health and safety information in light of COVID-19’s rapid spread across the globe has necessitated a change of headlines since then, BLM’s supporters continue to protest against racially motivated violence and prejudice in the US, all while pushing for much needed, sweeping reforms. In order to provide a helpful reminder of that, Sony has now released a new dashboard theme sporting the Black Lives Matter symbol, which is free for all PlayStation 4 owners.
It’s a welcome addition, and one that comes at a time when the company is in the midst of rolling out its largest firmware update arguably since the PS4’s launch way back in 2013. While several components, such as UI adjustments (and a somewhat short-sighted change to digital libraries) have already been released as part of the ambitious overhaul, improvements will continue to arrive throughout October and beyond in the run up to the PlayStation 5’s launch on November 12th.
Speaking of which, a recent video aimed at showcasing the next-gen console’s own user interface revealed a number of interesting details, including long awaited confirmation that the PlayStation Store will no longer be installed as a standalone app, but integrated directly into the system, eliminating loading times and other latency issues in the process. See here for the full story.