It's a familiar enough scene. You buy a new game from the shop, you rush home, you put the disc in the drive, you turn the console on, you pick up the controller, and - "an update is required". Cue sitting around for the next half an hour thumbing through the four page pamphlet that classes as an instruction manual nowadays, as you impatiently wait for the download to complete. The "connected" consoles may have brought a load of benefits with them, but awkward timed updates are one we could do without.
But it's not just games that can fall foul of updates, as Sony have announced the Playstation 4 will require a 300mb update on day one if you're planning on using it online. Adding in a whole host of new features, most of which are multiplayer/online oriented, the package weighs in at a lot less than the similar Wii U update that caused chaos on day one. At over a gigabyte in size, the Wii U update took an age to download, and didn't make it entirely obvious that you could make it download in the background - so Sony will undoubtedly be hoping their patch goes a lot more smoothly.
The full list of features the day one patch will add is as follows:
- The ability to watch Blu-ray discs and DVDs
- Online multiplayer functionality
- The ability to listen to music in the background, courtesy of Music Unlimited
- Party chat, for up to eight players
- Face recognition (through the Playstation 4 Eye), and Kinect-style voice recognition, using the bundled headset
- The ability to have four player logged into the same console at once
- "Play as you download", which lets you start playing a downloadable game before it's finished downloading
- The PS4's share functionality, which lets you take screenshots and record video, although at launch, you'll only be able to post them to either Facebook or Twitter, not YouTube.
- The ability to broadcasting a stream of your gameplay, so friends (and the general PS4 public) can watch you play.
- Second screen functionality, which lets you use the PS4 Link app to connect your PS Vita, Smartphone or Tablet to your PS4, for use in certain games, like The Playroom, which lets you use your phone to draw objects to use in the game.
- Remote Play, which lets you use your PS Vita to play PS4 games on the go, so long as you have a WiFi connection
And that's that! It's a pretty hefty list of features for a 300mb update, but it is somewhat surprising that the PS4 won't be able to play Blu-rays or DVDs out the box. If you're getting a PS4 and don't plan on instantly connecting it to the internet, that may be something to keep in mind - although, with built in WiFi, if you have a wireless router, you shouldn't have too much of an issue getting online.
As a first big test for Sony's network systems, where hundreds of thousands of users connect at the same time, desperate to download, this is going to be a pretty big challenge, both on day one, and again on Christmas day, and Sony will no doubt be hoping the process goes somewhat smoother than Nintendo's did. Having already confirmed that you'll be able to play a single player game while you're downloading, at least you won't have to just sit and watch the progress bar complete (is it wrong that I find progress bars really satisfying? - Ed). We'll be keeping our fingers crossed that it goes smoothly.
