Sony may not have been dishing out firmware updates as fast as its competitor, but the PlayStation 4’s upcoming refresh certainly seems packed with interesting features. The most noteworthy of these is Share Play, an innovative idea that was announced by Gaikai honcho David Perry way back when the next-gen system was first revealed, but has taken some time to materialise.
This essentially creates a virtual couch environment for you and your friends, allowing them to spectate and take control of your games. The best part about this is that your buddy won’t need to own or download anything to get started, and only the host will require a PlayStation Plus subscription.
You will both need a premium membership if you want to play local multiplayer games together, but this seems fair to us. The only downside is that you’ll have to manually re-establish the Share Play connection every hour, which is presumably to prevent people from taking advantage of the functionality.
It’s a hard addition to explain with words, so we’ll hand you over to PlayStation public relations servant Andrew Kelly for a little more information. Is this something that you’re excited for, or another one of those features that you’ll never use? Pass the controller in the comments below.
[source blog.us.playstation.com]
Comments 14
Really looking forward to using this function on PS4. One of many reasons for why I bought mine. I am really excited now, this opens up so many possibilites for me and my friends to share and play our games.
So in theory you'd be able to play Towerfall Ascension online despite it being a 'local only' multiplayer
@FiDRoC Absolutely, that's a really good example.
EDIT: Plus, only one person would need to own it.
I've heard that fencing simulator is crazy fun playing against other people (is it Nidhog?). Maybe I can try it out now thanks to this
@FiDRoC omg, YES!! I've only had the pleasure of playing that with friends once, and what a laugh it was. Now we can play all the time!
It's only 1 other player though right? Surely 3 people can't connect to my ps4 for a 4 player co op game??
Its the same thing as vitas remote play but the communication is two ways
I just hope it won't have the problems that DRIVECLUB is having.
Hopefully this will actually work i think sony should be concentrating more on upgrading and purchasing of new servers so we can have a better more smooth online there servers at present can barely handle the load think of all the new gamers joining next gen soon just my opinion
@seeafish Yeah I imagine it's limited to just one person connecting at once but it'll be interesting to see if you're able to have 2 or 3 people playing locally with the 4th playing via Shareplay
@seeafish Yeah, it's just one other person.
@FiDRoC @get2sammyb hmm shame, but fair enough I guess. Hopefully more players will be supported in the future.
This means that a good mate of mine who's a bit strapped for cash will be able to have a bash on games I've bought, essential functioning as a playable demo. For that, I'm really thankful.
I just wonder how good an internet connection you need to have for this to work.
I think they'll have a tonne of issues with this feature. I have problems receiving messages. I get the notification but it takes several minutes for the messages to load. Also my friends list still lags and I have between 10-15 mbps download speeds and an above average upload speed. I hope this works for Sony and everyone who uses it but to be honest I have doubts. Im just going off of mine and my friends experience with PSN of late.
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