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Created for Sony Interactive Entertainment. Available December 6 in US and EU for $2.99

Update 2021 - we were able to grab live links for the NA store after the PS5 store refresh:

Live in North America:
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP9000-CUSA07737_00-PSLEGACYTHEME001?PlatformPrivacyWs1=exempt&scope=sceapp&smcid=psapp%3Awhats%20new%3Aactivity%20feeds%3Awnsbestofe3sale061218%3Aplaystationstore%3Astore-msf192018-bestofe3salegg

We are pleased to bring you this theme, created with input from SIE US, Japan, and Naughty Dog.

After multiple prototypes over the last 2 years, each of which were designed to mimic functional aspects of the PS2 Dashboard, we have been given the opportunity to combine multiple disparate elements into a single piece of theme software which mimics the sights, sounds, and functionality of the Playstation 2 Dashboard.

Upon starting up, users are treated fully recreated 'boot' sequence. PlayStation 2 logo cannot be used due to licensing restrictions, (believe me, we tried; also, using the PlayStation 4 logo in the same style was considered but ultimately not approved) so we have taken an opportunity to create a mid-boot 'Easter Egg,' which changes randomly with every login.

From there, the "Seven Stars" make an appearance, coalescing from random points to recreate the mathematical and dynamic formations to accompany the passage of time, similarly recreated from the original PlayStation 2 bios in the form of the Crystal Clock.

Color shifting is now controlled via user input, with subtle shifts in particle speed and behavior. Additionally, original audio has been taken from the PS2 hardware and recreated in the background ambience and custom keynotes for this theme.

Lastly, as is our standard, this theme has been designed for 1080p, 4k/UHD, and OLED displays.

Update: to answer some questions about how we adapted elements in this theme-

Audio: waves ambience was sampled from a PS2, with a seamless loop point mastered in the final BGM. Audio components, such as the sound of the seven stars coalescing and menu navigation, are pulled from multiple source files stored in the original PS2 bios. The PS2 hardware performed post processing (combining different files, and adjusting tempo / pitch) on these files to create each menu sound, with some variants based on certain situations: As result, certain elements always sounded a bit different each time they were played (such as the coalescing of the stars). Additionally, different variants of the PS2 hardware had slightly different implementations as well. Since we cannot manipulate the audio in this fashion, we have instead opted to use the clean, unedited samples in full.

Visuals: the crystal clock is offset to the left as this was requested by the SIEJ team. Color shifting of the clock is under user control, switching from blue to purple and back every time the upper menu is accessed. The seven star animation also responds to user input as well, speeding up subtly for an instant before returning to normal. A special normal map was used to reproduce the crystal surface materials, which responds differently depending on the angle of the light source tied to the seven stars in the center.

Elements that could not be recreated: the depth of field blur on the clock, as well as the trails of the stars—we tried a number of workarounds here, but none of them were truly satisfying. The GPU ceiling and Memory restrictions were constantly an issue as well, as we skirted with hard limits on object number and texture size constantly.

Lastly, the towers representing memory block save data could not be implemented as the PS4 theme API doesn’t allow any low level memory access. One of our prototypes did demonstrate an implementation where the blocks were random and controlled by the calendar day, however we ultimately worried this would lead to confusion, so we chose to use the ‘clean boot’ intro. Additionally, adding these blocks would have further pushed the resource limits described above as we added more elements to the main theme process.