Sony’s Massive PS4 FAQ Has Lots of Details

Is a bummer about the external HD but that was the "cloud" is for...

So is there any way to put your own music on the PS4? Or are we doomed to just use dedicated apps?

Quick, everyone overract or use this a an opportunity to act pretentious and smug!

Gamez "journalism"!

I haven't used a CD since MP3's came out... I haven't bought a CD in years nor will I ever, unless the apocalypse arrives.

@markjw: I agree. It's odd watching one side criticize a talking point for one brand while justifying the same thing for the other as if ultimately any of this truly is going to make any meaningful difference. Xbox One appears to have taken the biggest gang-up beating since E3 even though at the end of the day as we get closer to the respective launch dates, the sober consensus is that these two combatants have a lot more in common than they do apart. Just ask Keiji Inafune and Shinji Mikami;)

Anyway, I think the value in news like this patch update and confirmed limitations of the PS4 so close to launch date is that they reveal how bizarre an age we live in where physical objects are all but entirely arbitrary, especially in the entertainment and gaming spectrum. It's less and less about the "thing" itself and more about the manner in which the experience can be delivered after the thing is in your home. Otherwise "the thing" is rendered useless. It's more about the unknown implementations and how that unknown evolves over time within the digital infrastructure that has created a landscape for weird situations like people spending $400 on a plastic box that is essentially useless until you are given some magic water to feed that Gremlin and watch it grow.

This got weird didn't it? In short, none of this is a big deal. Sony fans can calm down and stop getting defensive over the same arguments they made against Microsoft months ago when similar announcements were made on that side and get back to being excited. It's exciting to be excited for something shiny and new, hopefully everyone who is excited will be satisfied when they open those boxes in a couple weeks otherwise I worry that all hope is lost for this beloved industry.

People really will find anything to bitch about won't they?

Who really expected the PS4 to be the console messiah? Both are going to be pretty solid and both are going to have some wonky flaws.

If no MP3 is all I have to worry about, then its a good day in my book.

These new consoles just get less and less appealing everyday, huh

The last time i actually put an audio cd into a console was with my 360 like 4 years ago. I won't miss it much, but the day one patch required for Blu Ray/DVD movies to work is odd.

Hey, we have a product for people who want to stream DLNA, it's called PS3.

Their headsets are not being supported at launch as well. Lame!

Thanks for the suggestion. I was juuuust looking at Newegg for bigger HDD for the PS4. Thinking I should maybe do it now before I fill it up and then realize it's time to upgrade.

Ugh. Welp, guess that settles that, then. Time to abandon my really dumb PSN username to make a wholly new PSN account with a slightly less dumb name. I mean, none of this content is going over anyway, so what the hell, right? (Well, Flower and such notwithstanding, but meh.)

I ripped quite a few CD's for use as custom soundtracks on my PS3, so I'm kinda disappointed they've taken that feature out,

Is there a way to rename my Online ID on PS4?

No. But PS4 does give you the option of allowing your friends to see your real name in addition to your Online ID. You can also choose to import your Facebook photo to be used as your PSN profile picture if you wish.

@jeff

no cds is fine, no one uses those anymore anyway, but no media server seems mind blowing.

That's a tiny misstep. It makes me only slightly annoyed.

I hope media streaming works its way back in at some point (maybe by the time I actually take the plunge and get a PS4?), because that's one of the things I use pretty often on my PS3.

Real glad to hear the hard drive is replaceable.

This one annoyed me:

Is there a way to rename my Online ID on PS4?

No. But PS4 does give you the option of allowing your friends to see your real name in addition to your Online ID. You can also choose to import your Facebook photo to be used as your PSN profile picture if you wish.

I'm still going to be locked to the stupid name I chose almost 10 years ago, it seems. Or I could make a new account, which won't have the cross buy stuff from PS3 and I'd have to find and readd all of my friends. Dumb.

Ah, so I guess that explains Brad's earlier tweet.

I think looking at this link will give lots of perspective.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_system_software

Look back to what as included with PS3's version 1.5 system software. Then scroll all the way up to version 4.5. They added a a lot of features! I don't think that type of approach will change this generation. Looking forward to seeing what the PS4 will do in 2 years time, in 5 years! Wow, its exciting when you think forward to what could be coming.

Wait so no custom soundtracks?

If it won't play mp3s, how will we add custom entrance music to WWE games...

I checked on this early, and this is in regards to the outdated Media Center program which was dropped with Windows 8. According to msot outlets they have been given every indication ( but no confirmation ) that DLNA WILL be supported.

Funny oh how every bad news for Sony is turned into the best thing that could happen to the console in forums

Loss of media streaming is a serious disappointment, but I'll still have the PS3 hooked up. Hope that they reconsider because it's a feature I use daily. Also thought custom soundtracks via MP3 files would be a thing this time around. Guess not. Disappointing.

I wish they just made two columns and on one side it would have all "Promised" features and on the other all the features available on day one.

More like "Who uses Audio CDs in 2013?!" amirite?

I do actually, but I don't think I ever did on my PS3.

Anyway, I've already commented on the forum thread a user created, but yeah, this seems to really suck for some people. Regardless, I think we can all agree that FAQ lays out a lot more stuff to be excited about than it does stuff that should make anyone even minimally upset.

What really bums me out is the lack of a music visualizer. The PS3's was tops son.

Wait for more news on DLNA.

I only want three things from the PS4: 1 - Party chat. 2 - games 3 - no crashes.

@supersonic1305: im not buying an xbox im buying a ps4 and pre ordered it the second it was available on amazon so I can't care less what xbox did or does because I am not buying one at the moment.

Does anyone else think all this 'next gen' stuff is kind of a step backwards?

Did anyone use their consoles for music ever? I had music on the original Xbox, but that was just for GTA custom stations.

@xeirus: lol not sure if you're being sarcastic or not but I'll take it as a positive. For people who are worried about HDD space here is an excellent drive that is reliable, fast, good thermals, quiet and you can buy for cheaps. I'm currently using it in my PS3 and will be putting in the PS4 straight away:

Hitachi GST Travelstar 0S03563 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Notebook Hard Drive Bare Drive

I guess those weren't the people screaming about how they just want a console to play games a few months ago.

How did I miss that the Dualshock 4 has a speaker in it? Well I certainly hope that the audio quality is better than the Wiimote.

Are you being sarcastic?

Strangely, Microsoft has said the Xbox One can not be used to extend Media Center capabilities from a Windows PC, and they haven't confirmed or denied DNLA yet either. Still not sure how centric the XBone approach is?

http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-xbox-one-wont-be-a-windows-media-center-extender

People care about no CDs? I haven't used a CD in like nearly a decade. I'm getting a GAME console to play video games.

Microsoft was honest about their stuff months ago and people jumped at their throats then and haven't let up. Sony is honest about their shit a few weeks before launch, people are going to make a bit of a fuss now but then forget it all happened and continue to shit on the XBone for no good reason. The world will keep spinning, both consoles will be successful, analysts will say one is doing better than the other and 24-hour news sites like Kotaku will run a ridiculous linkbait article about it. In ten years all the crossplatform games will look exactly the same on both consoles, console exclusives will be dead and we'll do this all over again.

Meanwhile PC mouse, keyboard and Oculus mustardrace will be playing Crysis 6 on Cocaine settings and wondering why the controller monkeys took so long to catch up.

I plan on doing a A-B comparison of this as soon as I get it. Will use digital titles to compare I think, like Resogun and Constrast. Figured it will be easiest to do when the console is new, and I have an extra SSD lying around, so...

twitter is losing their damn mind over this right now

@sony4lyfe@supersonic1305

You guys are joking right?

The most surprising part of these comments, and in the playstation blog comments section is, people still want to use CDs?

MP3s I understand, hope it is in a later update as well.

Meh, I usually 'stream' to my tv from the HDMI cable that's plugged into my computer. For my other TV, I have Roku. media streaming ain't that bad. As for playing cds, yeah it's like... why the hell not? But at the same time, I don't know the last time I used a console to play music cds. I mean, I don't think I did, ever. Maybe the sega saturn, but those were different times, man.

EDIT: I guess I should say that it's not so bad for my set-up. Not everyone has their computer set up right next to their televisions

The news I want and haven't been able to find anywhere is if putting an SSD in a PS4 improves load times.

@frankiebeanz: At least they are being honest about this stuff. What the hell is Microsoft doing?

DNLA might just not be ready for launch, to be added later? It wasn't on the PS3 at launch either, for those that remember.

let all the bad news out days before launch very classy sony wtf is the point of usb 3.0 if we can't use it....and im going to say all these software features they been showing us most of them will probably never come just like they did to the ps3 and all the software features they showed on it.