The Playroom on Playstation 4 was clearly meant for fun little mini-games, parties, and generally just having fun right? Well it seems like Sony is basically between a rock and a hard place, and I’ll tell you why. Since the launch of the Playstation 4, the Playroom app has generally become a running gag within the inner circle of gaming enthusiasts who have bought a Playstation 4, as it has become totally overrun with insanity, nudity, and all around debauchery.

Just how bad did the Playroom content get via Twitch TV and Ustream, on the Playstation Network? There have been several instances of people being taken advantage of and exposed to the public, people openly doing illegal substances, people generally unleashing their lunatic desires, and some people just using the service to allow viewers to watch them play games on other consoles.

There’s even a subreddit for Playroom content (most of it is completely NSFW), which you can view here – I’m warning you that basically ALL of it is totally NSFW.

He just wants to show you his Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

Playroom on Playstation 4 is basically a real life example of The Truman Show, only the people behind the camera don’t fully realize the repercussions behind their internet fame, or they simply just don’t care. The abuse of Playroom got so bad that Twitch TV decided to remove Playroom content from their rotation of streams completely, meaning you could only view Playroom streams broadcasted on Twitch via another Playstation 4.

So let’s go back to why I think Sony is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to this entire situation.

Streaming video on the Playstation 4 has become so popular that there was actually a shortage of Playstation 4 cameras. Sony couldn’t produce the damn things fast enough, and they even confirmed that the camera itself had a 15% percent attach rate – meaning out of the last milestone of 6 million consoles being sold, roughly 900,000 of those users bought the camera.

That’s a lot of users, and Sony isn’t trumpeting this camera anywhere NEAR as much as Microsoft did with the Kinect (either versions), or Nintendo did with the Wii.

This guy gets half naked later.

With the rampant amount of nudity, swearing, illegal substance abuse, and so on happening on Playroom channels, does it make sense for Sony to start implementing restrictions on how users can broadcast content, or what kind of content they can broadcast? It seems like early adopters of the system are finding a use for the console outside of just playing games, and that goal seems to be internet fame. I’ve seen people using their Playstation 4 to simply sit there and talk with anyone who happens to stop by, and many channels have gotten viewers in the hundreds, if not thousands.

While it would make sense for Sony to just start handing out the bans (they already have, especially in the case of really extreme situations of nudity or similar circumstances), letting users basically turn their Playstation 4 consoles into a window for broadcasting their antics into the internet is basically the only reason why the cameras are selling at this point. There are no full fledged games that are truly utilizing it, and there seem to be none in the pipeline, so the only way Sony can keep schlepping these things off is to basically stand by and only slap the wrists of the serious offenders.

Have any of you Playstation 4 owners out there used the service – and if so, what did you experience? Apparently the ratio of people using the service for its intention, i.e. playing games, vs. the people using it to just host a talk show, consume illegal substances, masturbate, and so on, is pretty skewed. Clearly, there are way more people who would rather publicly expose themselves or others, over the people who just simply want to play games and stream them.

Credit for all of the images and GIFs goes to NeoGAF and the aforementioned Playroom Reddit.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of, and should not be attributed to, Niche Gamer as an organization.