Could a Future PS4 Firmware Update Bring Online Friend Notifications?

I actually like it now. I like it when I go online everybody is not aware of my login.

Yeah I would like to know when specific friends are online, so favorite option would be nice. That would even be a nice option for Vita because some times you have that one guy that keeps putting his Vita in sleep mode on/off, and it gets very distracting while playing games.

@RawWilson1 same here but perhaps an ability to select favourite friends from your list that shows them when you log in for those who want to know when friends come online

How was this NOT a function at launch? Completely ridiculous, if you think about it. And people who want a "favorites" section to seperate their friends.......why is a person even on your friends list if you don't want them in your "favorites"?

@Godsire- I think because there's a major difference between a friend and a best friend

This feature would be great if their was a notification if your friend began playing a certain game such as Assassins Creed Unity so you both can complete missions & heists together.

Why do people keep requesting this very annoying feature? Why I think it's useless, particularly on PS4:
1) districting as hell, especially since they upped the friends limit
2) if some one comes online and wants to pay with you they will let YOU know
3) if you want to play with some one and they aren't online, you can just message them by totally different means (SMS, WhatsApp, Viber, hangouts, etc)
4) if the person isn't a close friend and you don't message them outside PSN, just massage them via PSN and they will get notified immediately via the mobile app or as soon as they login to their PS4
5) it's distracting as hell!

There's literally not a single use case for this pointless feature, for ME anyway...would love to hear how you guys use it; perhaps I'm missing something?
Since the PSN has been made more social, people get game invitations even when offline. I think that's Sony's intention as it always opens ALL friends (even offline ones) when you are selecting people to message or invite to game or party.

Messages take anywhere between minutes and hours to turn up on PS4 and on the app it's near impossible. For every message you get to read on the app there's thirty you never do. Maybe if they fixed them both what you said would be true but at the moment it simply isn't the case.For a console so keen to stress the social nature and "for the players" mentality to not have such a simple features (with options to select certain people or even turn it off) is ridiculous.

I also don't get the "it's distracting" argument. No, it isn't. There's no noise when a friend comes online on PS3 and not once has it affected me in any game whether it be a slow paced RPG or a split-second-mistake-and-you-die game such as Catherine.

You can also turn the notifications off on PS3 if you don't like them. If giving the same option on PS4 everyone can be happy.

i dont care for this at all.i just want messages to work properly.ps3 is miles quicker at messaging. is it something that is going to curse the ps4 cus i know theybe already had a crack at fixing it and it hasnt worked clearly cus mine takes forever to refresh etc

The friend notification is a great feature, there will probably be an option to activate the feature under every friends profile which will be automatically set to "off" so the user has full control of who they allow the feature to work with, maybe the friend will also have to ok the option to allow 2 way notifications?

I don't particularly care tbh

@mikey85 Yeah they deffo need to get the messaging sorted before releasing another firmware update. Messaging was fine before the original DDOS attack by the dicks from Lizard Squad.

About time!! But like the "select friends" you talk about, would be sweet!!

Very seldomly, a ps3 notification will block something I need to see on the screen. But if they paid attention to that, I think it could work just fine

@rastamadeus you are partially right. Messages worked brilliantly until around the time Destiny came out. It's been better the last 2 weeks, so it seems like they are working on it, and one can assume it Will be fixed, so take my point as relevant under optimal conditions.

The distraction arguments comes from the amount of media I watch on my PS3 and PS4. It's annoying to constantly have people sign on and off while watching a movie. For that reason and the other reasons I gave, I'll probably disable this if they ever release it.

I'd be happy for the feature to be added in the future but it's actually quite refreshing not having constant notifications appearing when the same person keeps going between online and offline. If I want to play with someone online, I'll actively looking for them on my online friends list, so it's not something I miss at all. I think a happy medium would be the ability to toggle this option on or off, that way the user has the choice. The fact that you can do something doesn't mean everyone wants to. Surely, "for the players" must imply there is some choice available or customisation of features?