The PS5 ‘Hours Played’ feature has received more prominence but despite numerous firmware updates, it remains inaccurate. It’s unclear how Sony’s system calculates gameplay time, with some fans theorizing that PSN connectivity has a role to play.
March 2024’s firmware update made PS5 ‘Hours Played’ more visible
Earlier this week, Sony rolled out a major PS5 firmware update, as part of which a game’s hours played can be seen on the main dashboard when players hover over the game tile or icon. Fans immediately noticed that the counter was broken, with some disputing claims that connecting to PSN makes the counter more accurate.
I’m always connected to PSN when playing games including single-player titles. According to Sony, I’ve played nine hours of Hogwarts Legacy but I’m well under that. The system further shows I spent 18 hours playing A Plague Tale: Requiem, which also isn’t close to the time I actually spent beating it.
Interestingly, Sony’s year-end wrap-ups during the PS4 era were also completely wrong when it came to displaying hours played. The feature isn’t entirely new to this generation, but has only gained more prominence now.
It’s not a dealbreaker for me personally, but it is a bit annoying to have something inaccurate staring at me.
