PS5 can’t move games from internal SSD to USB drive yet
During the PlayStation 5 test, Eurogamer reporters found the following problem: there seems to be no way to copy PS5 games from the system’s main storage right now, which creates problems when the SSD is full. In this scenario, the only way to install new games is to uninstall the old ones.
That is, to replay it, you will have to reload it, deleting others. An important clarification needs to be made: games of the PlayStation 4 generation installed on a new console are not affected by this limitation – they can be moved to an external USB drive.
As with the Xbox Series S and X, next-gen PS5 games can only be played from internal storage. Microsoft’s new consoles also allow them to run from 1TB expansion cards, but Sony has yet to certify any third-party NVMe M.2 drive for expanding internal space.
The advantage of Xbox consoles is the ability to archive any new generation games on an external storage device (for example, HDD). The owner cannot run next-generation games from there, but at least is free to move them to and from internal storage without re-downloading from the web. While PS5 does not allow this.
To test this, reporters filled 667 GB of available storage with games and then tried to install a new PS5 generation game. The system asks to free up space, as you would expect, but the only way to do this in the case of next-generation games is to delete them from internal storage. Games today often require 100GB or more, so this poses a problem – hopefully Sony will be quick to fix it.
A less serious issue is how the new console handles PS5 game saves. The new console’s UI can still back up and restore USB saves for PS4 generation games. However, in the case of PS5 game saves, there is no USB option. Perhaps Sony went for it because the PS4 save system was hacked a long time ago, and the software allows you to make changes to the saves or share them with others, getting rare items.
The PS5 save system, perhaps, Sony has decided to leave completely under its control in order to increase security, albeit at the expense of user convenience. It should be noted that PS5 automatically syncs save to the cloud, similar to Microsoft consoles since the days of the Xbox One.
