Japanese site Pocket News has posted what it claims to be a list of features for PlayStation 4 firmware 3.0, and a Reddit user has translated the list.
Most of the new features seem to be community based and include events and improved messaging with – woo – stickers. You will also be able to broadcast direct to YouTube.
I’m struggling to make this sound remotely exciting, probably because it isn’t. Sorry.
Main features in version 3.00 beta update
- (Events) has been added to the function items. All events associated with PlayStation are now brought together, enabling you to discover, participate in and watch these events in a centralised area.
- (Communities) has been added to (Friends). (Communities) is a feature that enables you to find players who have similar tastes and interests. You can join an existing community or create your own community. You can also play games, join parties or talk about shared interests with members in the community.
- You can now go to (Now Playing) to see what games or parties members of the community are enjoying right now. You can also easily start a game, join a party or send a request to watch a member’s gameplay in (Now Playing). You can access (Now Playing) from What’s New, (Friends), (Communities), the message screen in (Messages) or Profile.
- The layout of the message screen in (Messages) has been improved. From the message screen, you can now select (Now Playing) or easily start a party. You can also add your favourite groups to [Favourite Groups] in (Friends).
- You can now broadcast your gameplay on YouTube™.
- You can now upload video clips to Twitter (10-second limitation).
Other features in version 3.00 beta
Share
- The layout of (Live from PlayStation) has been improved. In addition to broadcasts, you can now view video clips and screenshots.
Settings
- You can now change the speed for automatic text scrolling in (Settings) > [Accessibility] > [Auto-Scroll Speed].
- [Community], [Requests to Watch Gameplay], [Events] and [Current Song] have been added to (Settings) > [Notifications] > [Display Pop-Up Notifications].
Other
- You can now post your comments for activity feeds in What’s New.
- You can now enjoy fun conversations with your Friends using (Stickers) in (Messages). (PlayStation®Plus) has been added to the function items. You can now see all of your PlayStation®Plus benefits, such as free monthly games, exclusive discounts, news and more, in one place.
- Accessibility features are now available when playing content from Blu-ray Discs™ or DVDs. Application of these features has also been expanded. You can now restrict the use of games while looking at age level information and rating icons.
- You can now create a sub account for a minor by selecting [New User] in the screen for selecting a user.
- You can now adjust settings for Web filtering services from (Settings) > [Parental Controls]. You can use the service to block objectionable websites from being displayed in the Internet Browser. (Additional fees may apply for use of the service.)
Source: Pocket News / Reddit
james123
For a 3.0 version number I don’t think this sounds very existing.
Amphlett
My son has amassed a lot of ‘friends’ through mainly playing LittBigPlanet on PS3 and now we have a PS4 (launchday) we have been included in several group messaging sessions. I’ve been tearing my hair out trying to get myself removed from these groups due to the insane number of messages and inane babble but it’s not at all easy. I’ve read through numerous forums where people are all complaining about the same issue so it would be great if Sony set a simple option against each group message to “Remove my ID from this group message” or similar.
Forrest_01
You just need to delete the ‘thread’ I believe (which is probably just a case of pressing options whilst it is highlighted (dunno as I don’t delete mine) – People still in it will get a notification that you have left. Pixel does it all the time.
Amphlett
Thanks for the pointer. I’ve tried that numerous times but those people still in the thread, when they send a new message it will send to all who were originally in the thread and who are on their Friends list, so I get dragged back in. I’ve found that a combo of deleting the last message and then blocking all messages apart from ‘friends’ and deleting those people on the distribution list of the message thread from my ‘friends’ list seems to get rid of the problem. Phew. It’s not simple when it should be.
Forrest_01
Yeah, you are right – A simple ‘Leave Group/Conversation’ wouldn’t go amiss.
bunimomike
Did you set him up with a separate log-in for the PS4? Hope so. :-(
Amphlett
Nope, I didn’t. Instead I used Parental Control to only allow playing of games at certain age levels, and all internet traffic in my home is very well filtered.
bunimomike
Ah, good man. Such a shame it wasn’t a separate log-in so he’d have to go to his profile to catch messages. Then again, that would take a separate PSN account for him to log into as well.
Sadly, it looks like you’ve been damned by your own kindness. Fingers crossed there’s a way to sort it all out.
Youles
Nothing of interest for me really, seems to be focused on sharing and community etc.
Has anyone noticed the improved PSN download speeds? Wonder if there has been some investment on Sony’s part, and hence the PS+ price increase. PSN content seemed to download about 1mbps but this last week it now seems to download about 5-6mbps, and my internet speed has always been 60mb fibre.
scavenga
Whaaaaat…
They spent time on making stickers and communities rather than sorting and folder options in the XMB, batch deletions from cloud save data storage and selection of which games to back up to the cloud?
And so forth?
I’m starting to grow a dislike for Sony, and I’m not comfortable with that at all.
MrYd
Ah, the old “why are they adding some feature I don’t want instead of working on the ones I do want?” argument?
Which ignores the possibility that someone already is working on those other features. Should they wait for those to be done before adding anything else? If someone’s working on those features you want (which might be more complicated), it makes no sense at all for everyone else to sit around doing nothing, does it?
And even if it was just 1 person working on the firmware, it often makes a lot of sense to take a break from the big jobs and quickly knock out a smaller feature.
Also, if you want to ignore all that, why should they be concentrating on the features you want? There are millions of others that might want different features. (More cloud storage space would be a lot more useful than being able to delete multiple things from the cloud at once)
scavenga
Well, I’m guessing more online storage isn’t so much a firmware upgrade as a hardware upgrade on Sony’s side.
And I’m pointing out the features I want because I know I’m not alone in wanting these. I defo know for sure I’m not alone in thinking that the PS4’s XMB is easily cluttered and restricted, and that it’s a bit silly considering the PS3 let you sort games and stuff into folders just how you wanted it.
Also, I’m pretty sure that the interwebby provides more hits for people wanting a fix to the XMB than people requesting stickers.
(Obviously I’m speculating).
Of course, I’m aware that different people want different features. Didn’t strike me to sign up at an online community to voice other people’s wishes, though.
ron_mcphatty
The community feature could be really good, it’ll be interesting to see how that goes. I’d’ve liked to see theme customisation options, I want to arrange game icons in an order of my choosing like on the Vita, and weren’t we supposed to be getting custom backgrounds at some point?
Lyts1985
This sounds more like a minor increment than a .00. I’ll be disappointed if this is the final list…
Amphlett
It would be great if the next firmware featured a random tune to play at PS4 boot, one of the songs from Sam Fox’s greatest hits collection. Just the chorus mind you, as playing the whole song would be ridiculous.
Amphlett
By the way, I have lots of other spurious ideas for PS4 firmware. Let me know if you want a run down…
double-o-dave
The SAMBOMB lives on!
Amphlett
;-)
Tuffcub
I only wanna be with you
TSBonyman
Having access to a list of all your plus benefits whilst sending a message seems an odd feature.
Being able to comment on What’s New, Youtube broadcasting, video clips to twitter and the update to Playstation Live are the more interesting features listed for me but hopefully there is something a bit more substantial in the update besides all the community stuff. I would give up all the above in exchange for folders.
beeje13
I think there’s supposed to be another bullet point there that seperates the stickers in messaging with the plus stuff.
TSBonyman
You’re probably right – i guess we’ll know better when it’s officially announced.
Jim Hargreaves
Communities thing look good. Could be great for gaming with the TSA crew and making groups for specific multiplayer games (Destiny, FF14, Rocket League etc.).
DJ Judas
I mistakenly thought that all the social features I’ll never use had already been implemented, and there wouldn’t be much more in the way of time wasted shoehorning yet more in from the firmware team. How wrong I was, as here we have with the exception of scroll-speed and parental control updates (wow) what appears to be an entirely social-based update that is somehow worthy of a version uptick.