The PlayStation 4 has many features – we’ve covered ten of them recently – but one of the key selling points has to be the DualShock 4: better triggers, improved analog sticks, that smart, potentially brilliant front light, the touchpad and, yep, the share button. Above all else, that single button encapsulates Sony’s approach to next gen gaming: video is getting bigger and bigger, and the esports movement is clearly important to PlayStation.
And whilst details at this point are scarce – we don’t really know what’s possible beyond what’s already been illustrated – we’ve seen live streaming; we’ve seen other gamers offering advice and being able to jump into your game; we’ve seen being able to jump back in time as the PS4 seamlessly records everything you’re doing, and uploading that content directly to YouTube: Guerrilla apparently did this during the PS4’s February reveal with Killzone Shadow Fall.
Video can be uploaded to Facebook too, and even other users. Sadly, it appears that developers can prevent the use of the function (to avoid spoilers, is the official line) but that aside, it sounds great. Likewise, it also appears that you can save video footage to the PS4’s hard drive, at least in the current dev kit. This probably won’t be the case in the retail versions (or at least undecided as yet) but it currently means that developers can edit video away from the PS4’s own editing interface.
Interestingly though, with or without this feature, where does this leave dedicated capture cards, that have enjoyed something of a monopoly for those of us that like to push content onto sites like YouTube? If gamers can edit their own footage and get it onto the internet in a decent enough quality (and the exported Killzone Shadow Fall footage certainly looked good enough to me) why would we need an intermediary third party device to record the footage we can already grab?
Not everyone will want to really embrace the PS4’s share function, and it certainly won’t be pushed on anyone that doesn’t. But for things like TSA community events, weekly shows like our own Newsdesk and the ever growing popularity (and profitability) of Let’s Plays, that single button could be absolutely crucial to the way the PS4 is accepted by those of a more social nature. It’s new, innovative and potentially rather exciting, and I can’t wait to give it a go.
TSBonyman
Just as well if it records to the hdd – I’ll be lucky if I can setup the PS4 with the correct Nat setting for everything to work properly. :/
The Von Braun
As a gamer:to me it means as much as the blue light the camera can track and the camera, features/tech i’m paying for i’ll never use.
xdarkmagician
IDK, I still think sharing is the worst idea since Twitter, and IMO its only going to be a matter of time before sharing affects gaming in some form or another- you can’t put a feature front and center like this and not have it affect something. If Sony didn’t want sharing to impact playing they wouldn’t of given it a dedicated button. They could have just added it to the XMB (or whatever) since everything gets recorded anyways.
Also I hope they turn off the trophies when someone jumps into your game to help. trophies are already about as meaningless as can be, but letting other players unlock them for you would remove the last thread of respect I have for them.
Plus I don’t understand how publishers/developer restricting the feature is bad. Its their game, they should be allowed to make it to include any features they want to include. Its also their copyrighted material, so its their right to limit reproductions as they see fit, and I for one am glad that Sony has given them a veto power on the feature.
OA77__
I don’t know how much ill use it im not on Facebook anymore and don’t use twitter,i have an account on Youtube but really just use it for the odd comment on vids,maybe ill post the odd vid to Youtube when PS4 hits maybe not,but all in all it’s kinda a nice option to have to maybe capture those amazing “did that just happen” gaming moments.
CarBoyCam
I’d like to think they disable HDCP on the HDMI signal in games to keep the option of using a Capture Card there. I say this because I doubt the Share button will allow us to record footage from menus etc. so full-length YouTube commentaries or tutorials won’t be possible.
And as you said, it won’t be possible in every game.
So both options please Sony! :D
freezebug2
Not looking too promising, read this earlier.
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/158916-sony-confirms-that-the-ps4-will-support-analog-output
Makes my current Avermedia capture device defunct on next gen PS anyway but doubtful that any capture device will be of use…….
Bilbo_bobbins
This all sounds good but I can see youtube filling up with crap content and it will be hard to distinguish the good from the bad, unless you subscribe etc.
I think its a welcome add on and I might use it once or twice on BF4 or something to share some funny moments, but probably wont touch it 90% of the time.
Adam Garrett
Hopefully the amount of likes and views they get will help filter out the crap.
three_leg_jake
I quite like posting my epic fails from COD games but the editing via the COD interface can be rather hit and miss so this could be fun.
Adam Garrett
There has been so many times when I’m in a game of TSA’ers where I’ve just wanted to hit a share button and upload the clip to YouTube so that I can put in in the forums here or on Twitter. And I don’t mean when I complete a standard level or see some nice part of a game, I mean when I’m in GTAIV charging a bus at Bunimomike only to fly over the top of him because I hit the smallest of objects on the way in or when a game hilariously glitches in a weird way. Or even just to show what actually happened in that crash when playing in the F1 championship. There are so many uses, and I haven’t even started on competitions.
There are still a few questions though such as audio, am I recording just the game sound or my microphone too or the other people I’m playing with on microphone too? Also, I assumed you would be able to save the video to the hard drive as the most basic of features and I’m shocked it’s up for consideration. Surely it’s borrowing space from the hard drive anyway as it’s recording all the time.
The other beauty of this is, if you don’t tend to play your games with others and this share button all seems a bit weird to you then you never have to use it!