The beta testing has begun, and the first signs are promising.

On the PlayStation Blog, a post shows some of the improvements that the Sasuke codenamed firmware will bring to all PlayStation 4s shortly.

Let’s start with the external hard drive support. You can plug a USB 3.0 HDD (up to 8 terabytes) to your PlayStation 4 and install your apps and games on them – attention, your save files will still be stored on your internal hard drive! You can also use custom backgrounds, add „drop-shadows on text, and the option to dim the Function Area will help keep the system icons and texts on the home screen clearly visible even if the background image you selected is super bright.”

The quick menu, accessible by holding the PS button on your DualShock 4, also got a minor revamp after the massive update in 4.00: it’s now smaller, you can form or join parties easier, and you don’t have to use the Party app for these actions either.

The notifications also got all into one list so that you can look over them much easier than before. You can also set up the pop-up notifications, too: you can choose which notifications will show up outside the menu, making it less of an annoyance if you don’t like to see them. You can also post text, screenshots, and gifs on Activity Feeds on the PlayStation Network, and you can also tag your friends and games in your posts.

If you have a PlayStation VR, you can now watch 3D Blu-ray movies in stereoscopic 3D with only the PSVR headset. There’s something else here that the PS Blog post did not talk about at all: the PlayStation 4 Pro also got a Boost mode!

The Verge says that the boost mode increases the PS4 Pro‘s CPU and GPU in games that launched before the console did, and the games’ performances increase with the boost. As proof, have a look at The Evil Within: