New Playstation 4 User Interface Info Roundup

playstation 4 ui watch dogs

Lots of new information has surfaced regarding the Playstation 4’s new user interface, straight from the Sony “Review Event” in New York City.

We’ve taken the liberty to gather the relevant information from various industry personnel who were invited to the event and shared their findings.


General

  • The PS4 UI is described as “super-slick and quick.”
  • The new PlayStation Eye can sign you into your PS4 like Kinect can with Xbox One, which only requires registering your face with the console. Once that is done, all you need to do is hold the controller up to the line specified while the Eye reads your face, and you’re instantly logged in.
  • Double-tapping the PlayStation button lets you swap between your last recently used two applications.
  • Signing in as a guest means all of your data will be automatically deleted whenever you sign out of that system. This means you don’t have to create a profile and delete it afterward.
  • PlayStation 4 can upload and download even while in standby mode.
  • You can charge your controllers via USB even when the system’s power is off.
  • While you can use the d-pad to navigate over letters while typing on the on-screen keyboard, there’s a new option in using the DualShock 4′s motion sensor to move a target over the on-screen keyboard. Sony is also working on touchpad typing.

Friends

  • In order to see someone’s real name on PSN, you have to send someone a Name Request. Unfortunately, there’s no accept all name requests function yet, but Sony is looking into it.
  • Annoyed by someone’s insane progress in a game, or lack of a social life? You can now turn off updates from individual friends on the PSN.
  • You can send 15-second voice messages, which can also have screenshots attached to them. These voice messages can be listened to on the PlayStation App (via smartphones) as well.
  • Party Chat allows up to eight people, and that also includes Vita owners as well. This is a system level function, meaning you can play anything while party chatting.

Sharing

  • You can stream gameplay for as long as you like. Sony says the only limit is the broadcaster, like Twitch or UStream.
  • You can filter who you share your videos and screenshots with from your friends list. This is handy if you have a group of friends that primarily play Killzone, you can share your Killzone media with only them.
  • The PS4 features an integrated Twitch browser at a system level. This showcases live, ongoing streams and allows players to search for users. Favorites and channel shortcuts are unfortunately not supported at launch this week, but could be added later.

Trophies

  • Trophies now have rarity, on top of difficulty. You’ll now be able to see how many other PSN users have earned certain trophies. The various rarity levels include: common, rare, very rare, and ultra rare. The Warhawk Platinum trophy, the one that I have been vying over for years, is an ultra rare trophy.

PlayStation Store

  • The PlayStation Store is natively integrated to the PlayStation 4, allowing you to instantly choose where to start, i.e. single player or multiplayer.
  • The store is noted as “significantly faster” than the currently PlayStation 3 store, which is still pretty terrible in my opinion.
  • Movies don’t have to be downloaded from the PSN Store anymore, you can stream everything moving forward.

So there you have it, all of that juicy information has now been revealed. Sources are from Kotaku, IGN, and Destructoid.

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Owner and Publisher at Niche Gamer and Nicchiban. Outlaw fighting for a better game industry.


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