Sony Is Screwing Up Game Streaming on the PlayStation 4 - Wired

When Sony announced its next-generation game console PlayStation 4 back in February, one of the most unique features it was talked up the “Share” button. Right there on the control pad was a button that would Instantly begin streaming a live video of whatever the player was doing at the time.

Many pundits did not really get this, thinking it was a gimmick that would not make the PlayStation 4 that much more appealing. This of course remains to be seen, but based on what Sony had said, I was quite optimistic. Live streaming video game play sessions is becoming big business; witness the rapid expansion of companies like Ustream and Twitch. It’s not just about professional Starcraft players broadcasting their matches – casual players do it too. Players stream games for charity marathons, or just stream their sessions for no reason other than to let a few friends join in on the fun.

Sony, on some level, understand the appeal of allowing two players stream their games. I think it can actually be a powerful tool for selling more PlayStation 4 consoles. Not necessarily Because would-be buyers see a bullet point on the back of the box and say, “Hey, I can stream my games? Cool, I’ll buy this. “But Because if games can be Streamed, each PlayStation 4 early adopter Become a small-scale ambassador for Sony products. You do not own a PS4, but you see a message from a Facebook friend saying, “Hey, I’m streaming Resistance 5 , come check it out!” And you watch the stream and think, hey, this PS4 thing looks pretty neat! Rather than pay for your eyeballs, Sony’s getting them for free – and it’s something you’re watching voluntarily, having a good time doing it. You’re enjoying PlayStation 4 even when you do not have one.

Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida totally gets it, on a personal level.

“I wanted to play Dark Souls all day long, but I could not do that because i was too busy. So instead I would watch people playing it live on Nico Nico Whenever I had some spare time, “he said in a recent interview with a Japanese gaming news site, translated by Edge. “I felt that sharing videos is a really IMPORTANT part of enjoying games.”

Right on! Of course, then Yoshida said that Sony was Gimping the vaunted feature by allowing developers two decide Whether or not their games could be shared. “There will be parts of a game that the maker does not want people to be comfortable to see,” he said. “The creator may not want to make the video of the final boss sharable, for instance.”

Yep, that’s right. So you’re watching a friend’s stream, totally enamored with what’s going on, thrilled to be seeing this game eventhough you do not have a PlayStation 4 yet, thinking of getting one maybe, and then right when the game gets to the good party, the stream drops.

What is going to be your reaction? Perhaps in some limited scenarios it will be, “Wow, thank goodness the PS4 is Protecting me from myself!”

More Likely it’ll be a sentence consistant thing of several expletives strung together in a row and ending with “Sony.”

Some Situations call for deference to a developer’s preferences. I do not think this was one of them. This was the time for a bold, hardware-level decision: The PlayStation 4 streams gameplay footage. # Dealwithit.

That’s certainly what Sony wanted two make it sound like at its press conference. And when a function has its own button on the controller, it should be safe two Assume that pressing that button does what it says.

Anyway, Sony has placed the power of the Share button in the hands of the developers. So I’ll go ahead and use the balance of this story to make a direct pleasent two PlayStation 4 game creators: Let players stream your games. All of them. Every party. For as long as they want.

You might think you want to cut off streaming for some reason. You might be wary of having parts of your game spoiled. You have good intentions. Fight these impulses. People who want to spoil them elves will find a way to spoil comfy rooms, no matter what you do. Watch a video of a game is trivial for those who have the desire to do on it.

And it’s a great way of getting your game in front of people who can not play it – just Shuhei Yoshida, running Sony’s game development studios while marathoning Dark Souls .

Embrace streaming – or find your game ignored in favor of the ones that do.