UPDATE: The new app is out, you can read more about it here!
Original story below…
Sony’s foundational work for the next generation continues, as they have now announced that the PS Messages mobile app is to be discontinued at the end of October and its functionality reintegrated into a new PlayStation App for iOS and Android.
The app will continue to work for the time being, but will no longer receive push notifications for messages sent from PS4 consoles.
It’s a reversal from Sony’s decision several years ago to split the functionality out from the main PlayStation app, which they had deemed was becoming too large and bloated. It saw Communities, Second Screen, Remote Play and PS Videos also become standalone apps at that time.
The launch of the PlayStation 5 will herald a major shakeup of Sony’s network and infrastructure, it seems. Last week, Sony dove into the backward compatibility features of the PS5, revealing at the same time that a number of apps the PS4 Second Screen app and game companion apps for PlayLink games would not be compatible. Today also saw the release of PlayStation 4 system update 8.00, which has modified how Events and Communities work going forward.
Remote Play is seemingly going to remain a standalone, with the apps being updated with support for PlayStation 5, and it’s likely that PS Videos stays a standalone storefront, but it makes sense for Sony to consolidate features into a single app if, as has long been mooted, the system software is designed around more social play and connectivity with other players.
We’ll just have to wait and see because, while it’s now less than a month away from release in several regions on 12th November, we still have no idea what the PlayStation 5 system software looks like or how core features such as the leaked PlayStation Activities work. Even as Sony are putting together the framework on which all of this can be built, they’re slowly running out of time to actually reveal what it is.
Source: PS Messages app
camdaz
The only reason the USA etc are getting the PS5 before us is to test the system so everything is working properly for us in (and out of!) Europe. :)
coruscant
Yay! I deleted the app as soon as they separated them ot, it was completely pointless