TGS 2013: Good News, PS4 Will Allow Direct Gameplay Capture Over HDMI

Sony’s big Tokyo Game Show keynote turned out to be a bit of a damp squib last night, but it did offer some interesting snippets about the manufacturer’s next generation hardware. One such announcement pertained to the PlayStation 4’s ability to freely output gameplay via HDMI without encryption.

Reports last week suggested that the console would employ the same high-bandwidth digital content protection (or HDCP) as the PlayStation 3, potentially making life difficult for those hoping to record footage directly to their PC. However, the firm announced during its press conference overnight that the system will support “gameplay recording over HDMI”.

While the language is a little vague, the move makes sense considering that the PS4 is built with social experiences in mind. The on-board share button will naturally cater to most gamers’ needs, but budding YouTube stars may require more than 15 minutes of recording time to put together a full Let’s Play series. Hopefully, this will now remove the headaches from that process.

Of course, the platform holder has already mentioned that the share functionality can be switched off by developers, so the firm may just be giving studios the option to disable HDCP on a game-by-game basis. If that’s the case, then issues may still arise – but it would definitely represent a step up from the pesky PS3 at least.