The rumour mill ran wild a couple days ago, when a Customer Service rep for Sony suggested that PS4 system software 4.50 would be coming out the next day, but as Tuesday came and went, no update made itself available to the masses. Maybe that was never the plan, maybe Sony decided that they could make everyone’s news stories into “fake news” by holding it back, just for a laugh, but whatever the case 4.50 for PlayStation 4 and 2.40 for PlayStation VR will be pushed out to users tomorrow, Thursday 9th March.
It’s a pretty big update with the following features:
- External HDD – Support for extending internal storage with an external drive between 250GB and 8TB.
- PS VR Improvements – Social Screen resolution improvements, higher resolution Cinematic Mode and 3D Blu-ray disc support.
- Voice chat for Remote Play
- Off-console availability – the PlayStation App and PS Messages can now indicate that you’re online with a smartphone icon.
- Custom wallpaper & profile colour – Set your own wallpaper from any screenshot you’ve taken. Profile pages now also change colour to match your chosen cover image.
- Share your activity – More granular options over what gets shared in your Activity Feed.
- Activity feed privacy – Set privacy for individual posts, even after it has been posted.
- Save Data Shortcut – Quickly access save data via the Options button menu and the new ‘Upload/Download Saved Data option.
- From Capture Gallery to SHAREfactory – head straight to SHAREfactory from the Options button menu while viewing a screenshot or video in the Capture Gallery
- GIF support – Post GIFs to your Activity Feed.
- Boost mode (applicable to PlayStation 4 Pro only) – Use the PS4 Pro’s extra power to alleviate CPU or GPU bottlenecks in games not optimised for Pro.
- PS Messages and Communities app updates
You can see them all outlined in Sony’s video:
via EU PS Blog
Tony Cawley
What an outstanding update. The only things that aren’t really something I’m interested in are the things relating to PSVR and PS4 Pro. The rest of it all sounds very good.
Do we have any idea of the size of the update file?
JR.
Good update.
I’d like to be able to download saved data in the cloud onto my PS4 for games I have uninstalled.
ron_mcphatty
Nice. I like the sound of the save options, for some reasons mine won’t auto upload so some sort of manual trigger will definitely be handy. And as simple as it is the custom wallpaper is very welcome, just for displaying a family photo.
TSBonyman
Do you ever put your PS4 in rest mode? I think that’s the only way for saves to be auto-uploaded.
ron_mcphatty
Yeah occasionally, I have done for a few weeks at the longest and despite trying to tick every relevant option it just didn’t upload anything, so I tend to do it all manually. Doesn’t bother me that much, it just means the occasional backup is a slow bit of work :)
TSBonyman
Well at least when you do it manually you can be certain it’s done. ;)
TSBonyman
Nice selection of features and tweaks, i’ll be making use of a few of them straight away.
homerjnick
I’ve found using certain external HD’s with Smart TV’s do not work if the external HD is powered through the USB cable.
Can anyone who ran the beta advise that external HD’s that do NOT have a power supply but receive their power via the USB cable work fine on the PS4 with the 4.5 firmware?
MrYd
That’s more likely to be some TVs won’t power an external drive, rather than just a problem with certain external drives. They’ll be up to the job of powering a flash drive, but a proper HDD needs a bit more power than they provide.
Newer TVs are more likely to provide enough power, although I’m sure some of them only do that with 1 USB port, so you need to make sure it’s in the right one.
The PS4 can happily charge controllers, or phones or whatever else you plug into it. And it’s USB3, so should be capable of outputting up to 900mA. Which is more than enough to power a 2.5″ drive. (You might struggle with anything with a 3.5″ drive in though)
So in theory, there shouldn’t be an issue. But I’m sure someone’s actually tried it and will confirm that.
There’s also an issue with USB hubs. In that you can’t use them. The drive has to be plugged directly into the PS4. And any drive that has a built in hub probably won’t work either. (If you’ve got a drive with extra USB ports on it, you’re out of luck)
Particle010
I can confirm that USB powered drives work as you said they would
DividSmythe
Service announcement. Update is now live.