With the PlayStation 4 launch in just a few weeks, Sony’s published an enormous document that answers a whole host of nitty gritty questions regarding the machine.

I’ve gone ahead and highlighted the most interesting pieces of information, but if you’ve got 30 minutes, it’s worth reading through the whole thing here.

• No YouTube sharing at launch. That’s coming later.
• PS4 does not support DLNA or media servers.
• The machine does not play audio CDs.
• External hard drives are not supported, but the 500GB hard drive is replaceable.

What am I going to do with all these CDs, Sony!?

That sucks for DLNA but oh well.

They'd better patch in media streaming by the time I buy one next spring. I spend a lot of my time streaming HD video from giant bomb through PS3 Media Server.

I give it 5 days past launch until there is a workaround. Besides, PS3 media streaming has always been kind of wonky (for me anyway).

It doesn't bother me much but the PS Blog comments section is going nuts. I had no idea so many people used their PS3 as their primary media server. It's a real shame for those folks.

Huh, no external HD support. That's kind of odd. Thanks for the heads-up, Patrick, I'll have to take a look at this.

*edit*

Can PS4 and PS3 users play together online, cross-platform?

The functionality is technically possible and some developers may choose to support it for their titles.

Good news for my Destiny plans.

Interesting that they are dropping DLNA capabilities. Oh well, at least my PS3 does an excellent job with that.

External hard drives are not supported, but the 500GB hard drive is replaceable.

50gb+ downloads, can't add an external hard drive. Nice.

Cool stuff. I'll take 30 minutes and read through it.

not being able to play MP3s is kind of a bummer but I never listen to music and play games anyways.

I know people will be salty about the lack of external hard drive support.

I had no idea people cared that much about DLNA and music playing on their consoles.

Whats that CD from? SNK Games?

Why wouldn't a console be able to play audio CD's these days? Or MP3's?

I would say not being able to play mp3 files is a bigger deal than audio CD.

Or having to download that update to be able to watch bluray and DVD movies.

They could easily add in these features at a later date. And if there's one thing we know about sony, they are definitely open to suggestions.

Kicking out the CD laser is a good idea, but DLNA and mp3 support? Even their TVs have that.

Wait, DLNA is a Sony thing right? Why wouldn't they support it?

No Media Server or even MP3's.....thats ridiculous.

(EDIT) - This is pissing me off the more I think on it, guess they really aren't taking the same 'entertainment center' approach the XBone is.

@metal_mills: Go on NewEgg buy a 2TB 2.5" drive and put it in? You wont max that PS4 drive with games till well into next year by which time they'll add support for it. This stuff is dropping in hot son.

Really?! No Audio CD's?! In 2013?!

Is this some kind of DRM stuff where Sony has to pay extra for audio CD playback? Because if not, this is pretty dumb.

Holy crap, I didn't realize how cheap those things were.

PS4 looks less and less appealing. Looks like I'll stick with current gen/PC for the foreseeable future

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

@sony4lyfe@supersonic1305

You guys are joking right?

twitter is losing their damn mind over this right now

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...

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.

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.

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

Are you being sarcastic?

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.

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

@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

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

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

@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.

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

Wait for more news on DLNA.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.