You seem to have confused Sony with Facebook. Sony don't give a flying one about 'your entire life', they just care about the papery stuff that's in your wallet. They see social functions - in effect an online version of 'word of mouth' - as a way of selling more consoles and more games to more people. It's that simple.

Plus Sony's chief of development has stated in interviews that the PS4 will work offline if you want it to. You don't have to sign in, you don't have to participate, if you want to be johnny no mates Sony will be happy to accommodate you provided you still give them money.

GT will be a while I suspect, if ever - Sony have a very traumatic record of announcing GT games at launch events that only show up literally years later, so maybe they've finally learned that lesson. I don't think DriveClub is a valid substitute but if Codemasters can get up to speed with PS4 we might get some good racing games pretty quickly.

GTAV is an interesting one. By the looks of things, it will launch pretty close to the PS4 launch, and many of the PS4 launch games are actually cross generation - Watch Dogs and Destiny for example will be out on both the current and next generation Playstation and XBox consoles. I don't know one way or the other but it wouldn't surprise me at all if GTAV gets announced for PS4 and the next xbox at E3.

Sony seems to have gotten itself confused with Facebook! It's all typical Sony aspirational stuff about integration that I'll bet my Coca-Cola stash they won't pull off in any meaningful way.

I fully appreciate that it's all about money, but seriously, who'll give a crap about anything bar your mate doing a tricky level for you online? And that's assuming you even know that feature exists.

Video chat's fine for the far-flung or kinda one-off, otherwise it's just a gimmick where you're much liklier to use some sort of portable computer. Uploading your own gaming videos? Pfft.

I see it as a continuation of the nonsense that's appeared on PS3, like the permanent Singstar advert and the video editing and uploading feature . I won't even start on Home... I appreciate I don't have to use these things, but at least let me tick a box so they don't display ffs, or give me a bit of choice come update time.

I live in a semi rural area, but use the internet a lot. Though the sharing everything is something that appeals only to the young. I can see the logic behind saving game play to a youtube account, but pretty much everything else is a waste of time. I do remember sharing high scores for Civ long before Facebook, but it was more a way of seeing what tactics worked.

The 'best' experience of sharing I can think of in the gaming environment is the autolog feature EA have used in some of their driving games. It doesn't do video, but you have a thing in the game where it knows all your friend's times on any given race. As you race it shows you the progress of your friend's 'laps' (not all race games have laps, but you know what I mean) and that gives you an incentive to beat them. And, should you do so, it broadcasts your time back to all your friends so they can try to do even better. You can also set challenges.

It all made you feel more like you were in a 'persistent game' even though you didn't have to play at the same time. It was great fun.

The way I see the PS4 social features are as a more refined version of that that can be applied to games that don't have as obvious objective target mechanisms as lap times or scores. You could have videos of collecting most objects in platform or adventure games, or clips of you showing off the best upgrades you got in RPGs. Plus if one of your friends is stuck you can put up videos that help them - or equally you can post videos of a section you're stuck in and people can suggest solutions.

I don't think it's doing anything you can't do within a group of friends by email or face to face contact but it increases the variety and sophistication of ways in which you can communicate within the system.

You don't have to use any of it if you don't want to but I think it's a fairly jaundiced view to consider it a bad thing. It's definitely a good thing, even if you don't think you're ever going to use it.

Jon

I can definitely see the advantages of the friends lap times components but how much social aspects can be added that make sense. The video aspect is quite useful.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/39 ... -download/

The subs thing is interesting if they'd have the wit to price it right, but that's highly unlikely. Subs of course are notoriously difficult to pull off anyway with the amount of agendas involved!

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/02/i ... e-console/

A nice analysis. The point about the PS3 and Xbox 360 being incredibly powerful for their day is one I've made myself. Microsoft really raised the standards.

I'll admit I'm disappointed that Sony haven't continued developing the Cell chip.
It just felt like the future of CPU design lay down that path, and yes, I know it was difficult to code for.
Sometimes it's just worth persevering with.

You could say the same thing about the Itanium - Intel's true 64bit parallel processor which is just breathing it's last breath before it dies, killed by AMD's messed up take on the game which ended up being copied by Intel because people want stuff cheap and now.

Really? The PS3 was a better design which led to better reliability, was more more powerful (when optimised for) and was technologically more advanced (HDMI vs component output, BluRay vs DVD, built in wifi vs... not). The one better feature the 360 had over the PS3 was a unified memory architecture. The standard Microsoft raised was how much money they could throw at a problem to cure the fact they rushed the 360 out to be first to market, which isn't exactly something to crow about.

The 360 was very successful, Id' argue the most successful console of the generation in the long term (Wii sold a lot more but a heck of a lot of Wiis gathered dust for most of the generation) but it didn't really raise the barrier on anything. It was if anything a very conservative design. The original XBox was more innovative for it's time, pioneering custom online networks and built in storage.

If the rumours on Durango and published PS4 spec say anything it's that Sony have learned that pushing unusual, innovative technology is largely a quixotic option, so they've gone for the safe option this time and thus followed Microsoft's lead.

Cheers for that!

I'll put this here rather than start a new thread

Former FBI profiler: ‘Video games do not cause violence’

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/24/f ... -violence/

Yay!

Yes but who here doubted that fact?

A Sony Computer Entertainment exec has said the platform holder is mindful of both the desires of consumers and game developers in relation to the use - and potential blocking - of pre-owned games on PS4.

PlayStation 4 Screenshot
Michael Denny, Sony's VP of Worldwide Studios, told CVG that he sees the used games issue as "massively important" and promised the PlayStation firm will "do the right thing" by both parties.

"It's a massively important issue and I understand why it's one that keeps coming up and will keep coming up, because people want to know what the exact stance is," he said in reply to a question about potential pre-owned games prevention.

"At this moment in time the announcements have been about our philosophy and vision for PlayStation 4, our motivation to put the gamer at the heart of it and why we've got the development community on it.

"In relation to points like that, of course we're mindful of what the game development community wants and what the wider industry issues are with those things. I think in good time that will become clearer."

It has been suggested that next-generation consoles could implement measures to prevent the use of used games as developers move to recoup lost revenue, and Sony has patented various technologies related to the blocking of second-hand titles.

According to one report, Microsoft will block the use of pre-owned games on its next-gen Xbox.

Last week Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida confirmed that used games will function on PlayStation 4, but did not clarify whether players would have 'original owner rights' to second hand games, or need to pay for online passes to access the content.

Pushed on the issue, Sony's Denny would only acknowledge that the firm would do what it sees as "the right thing" by both consumers and the development community.

"It's not something that I feel I have any further announcement or comment to make on, other than to acknowledge with you that it's a massively important issue and of course we are going to do the right thing," he said.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/39 ... ght-thing/

Ignore the developers, they're full of [LIFTED]. If you start fannying around with used games the consumer will punish you badly, and you'll bloody deserve it. Pair of you wanna make some money? How about knocking at least £5 off the internet RRP of a game on PSN, eh?

Strangely, Ian 'Games Workshop/Fighting Fantasy books' Livingstone, who these days is a big cheese in the video games industry, has been quoted today as saying that MS, if not blocking used games, are planning to implement a system to 'watermark' game disks so once they've been played on one console, they have to be 'unlocked' (for a small fee of course) to be played on another.

Not killing off the second hand market, but possibly winging it a bit.