Sony has just revealed its 2023 TV line-up, skipping its usual reveal at the CES show in January, and among its Mini LED and QD-OLED 4K-resolution wonders aiming to be the best TVs you can buy, there's a brand new feature that I just know gamers will love.
Sony has long been pushing gaming, given the stature it holds with the PlayStation 5. Indeed, the company has TVs with 'Perfect for PlayStation' badges already, and we've got the best gaming TVs for PS5 feature covering that.
But in Sony's 2023 TV range there's an entirely new feature: Game Menu. This is more advanced than the gaming mode that's long been available to take advantage of HDMI 2.1 content in 4K at 120Hz. Although I wasn't able to photograph the then-beta Game Menu bar, I can tell you that it's a lot more customisable, with the following options:
- VRR
- Motion Blur
- Black EQ
- Crosshair
- Crosshair Type
- Screen Size
- Screen Size Adjust
I'll break down what each of these does and why they're important. The VRR (variable refresh rate) one is a clear winner among gamers, and why I don't know why you'd want to turn it off, you have that option. Motion Blur, meanwhile, will remove any processing and frame insertion that some TVs perform, to get lag down to a minimum.
Black EQ is an equaliser for black level, so you can lift the floor of HDR (high dynamic range) without affecting other visibility, which although some might call 'cheating' to be able to see better into dark areas, can genuinely assist with your efforts in certain competitive games.
Then Crosshair and Crosshair type offer six on-screen designs for the cursor that displays, so you can tailor that to your needs.
If the game image doesn't fit to your TV screen well then that's what Screen Size is for, as you'll find when first setting up a PlayStation 5. But it's Screen Size Adjust that's particularly interesting as this permits you to re-scale the display to be within a much smaller area on screen, anything from 100% down to 30% – potentially handy if you have a giant screen and want to focus your vision into a more assessable peripheral area.
All these Game Menu features will appear on Sony's 2023 TVs, which include the X95L (Mini LED), X90L (Full Array LED), A95L (QD-OLED) and A80L (OLED). I'll be covering these sets in more detail if you're more interested in their other unique points of sale. But for gamers this new mode is a bonus in addition to the promise of stellar picture quality.
