Many of you are currently testing out the newest PS4 firmware, version 3.50, as we speak. If you are, congratulations. I signed up to test out the firmware as well, and I had really high hopes that Sony would be bringing some seriously game-changing upgrades. Well Sony was kind enough to give us a hint as to what we could look forward to, and I can honestly say that I no longer feel like I’m missing out on anything. Some of the features should have been here since the beginning, some are completely worthless, and one (just one) of them actually sounds useful.
Unfortunately that one cool feature, PS4 remote play on PC and Mac, isn’t part of the beta, so we won’t have any idea how smoothly that works until the firmware actually rolls out. Streaming from a PS4 to a Vita is generally pretty unreliable unless you’re close enough to your console to connect to it directly, or otherwise sitting somewhere in your house where you have a full-strength signal. Hopefully we can enjoy a more consistent experience on our computers.
Other than remote play, the rest of the firmware features seem like a bunch of fluff. Some of these seem more like fixes than new features. Notifications for when your friends sign on? Seriously? A friend online notification is something we’ve taken for granted since the days of AOL Instant Messenger. That’s not something Sony should be proudly promoting as a new feature, it’s something they should have quietly patched in years ago with an apology. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we’ll finally enjoy this tiny luxury, but what on earth took so long?
Everything else is fluff. The ability to appear offline seems redundant to me. If I’m playing a game solo or capturing some footage, and I don’t want to be bothered, I simply disable my pop-up notifications for things like invitations and messages. Who needs to appear offline, unless you have a crazy ex who stalks you through PSN? The party enhancements and scheduled events are neither exciting nor totally useless; they’re just there. What is totally useless is the ability to livestream to Dailymotion. Who the f#!% was asking for this?!
If I seem unreasonably upset it’s because I’m baffled as to how Sony can at times seem so cutting edge, and other times it seems completely daft and out of touch with its fans. There were three things that we were begging for leading up to this new firmware update. Three things we asked for repeatedly : the ability to change our PSN ID, more great PS2 games to play, and folders . For crying out loud, you could have at least given us folders, Sony. My PS4 homescreen ribbon / timeline is way too long, and games get lost in there all the time. Honestly, it’s inexcusable that we’re able to livestream to Dailymotion, but I can’t set up simple genre folders on my timeline to organize my games. It’s not like the idea hasn’t occurred to Sony, because we made our voices heard loud and clear.
Am I the only one peeved about this? Trust me, I’m an empathetic and conscious person, and I know just how puny of a first-world problem this is. I don’t mean to complain so histrionically, or come off as a drama queen. It’s just… why won’t Sony listen to our simple little requests? Who showed up to the meeting and suggested integrating Dailymotion streaming? Whatever documentation they used to support themselves, I bet they kept it in a folder. Must be nice.
Let me know what you think of 3.5.0 in the comments. Are any of you testing it right now and actually really happy with it? Are there any other really simple features (like folders) that you’d like to see in the next update? What about the ability to adjust microphone / headset levels without exiting your game session? Maybe next time – maybe after version 3.6 when Sony lets us livestream to chatroulette.