New PS4 Won’t Play CDs, MP3s, Stream Media
As the release of the next generation video game consoles marches ever closer, the flow of news seems to have increased along with it. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen everything from launch games being pushed back to next year to major feature reveals. Most recently, Sony posted a long list of frequently asked questions about their next generation system, the PS4.
Some of the Lacks
Alongside a laundry list of answers that most people already knew about, there were a few that really caught people off guard, namely the the fact that the PS4 lacks the ability to play audio CDs, MP3s, or stream any sort of media from a standard DLNA server. These are, of course, all features that do exist on the PS3, so the question that immediately follows is why would it be missing from the PS4?
The most obvious answer, and the one that many community members leaped to almost immediately, is that Sony wants people to use the subscription services that they offer, particularly when it comes to music. Sony offers a music streaming service called Music Unlimited, and even in the FAQ – Sony mentioned their service as an alternative to CDs and MP3s.
Of course, it’s not like gamers are unfamiliar with the concept of losing features in new consoles. In the days of the PS2 and Xbox, practically every single game had cheat codes that players could put in so that they could really do anything they wanted with the world, or just cheat their way through. In this most recent generation (Xbox 360 and PS3), those cheats have been relegated to a small number of games that want to keep the feeling alive, and even those games usually turn off things like achievements when the cheats are active. It would follow that this trend will continue on into the world of PS4 and Xbox One cheats – making them the realm of only a few select games like Grand Theft Auto.
Thankfully though, the death of these media features is apparently not final. Sony has become known during this cycle of endless hype for being the company that talks to its customers, particularly after the huge fiasco surrounding the early DRM policies that Microsoft has since abandoned – and in response to the outrage over the lack of media streaming features in the PS4, Sony has come out on Twitter and said that they are considering the creation of a post-launch patch for the PS4 that brings back these features.
Of course, this also adds to the list of PS4 features that will simply not be available at launch, since as cloud streaming of PS3/PS2/PSX games and support for the headsets that would work natively on the PS3 such as Bluetooth headsets. It is really beginning to seem like the PS4 will not be able to do all that much but just play games when it comes out later this year.