A little over a year ago, the PlayStation 4 was revealed by Sony. We were exposed to some of the most important features that have come to define the console today, such as its 8 gigabytes of GDDR5 RAM and revamped DualShock 4 controller. However, there was a seemingly minor feature announced as well: the Share button.
This magical button would allow the user to tap into the last fifteen minutes of recorded gameplay and upload it to Facebook and Twitter. It would allow the user to take an instant screenshot of any in-game moment. Yet, most impressively, it would allow the user to effortlessly broadcast gameplay to the two most popular streaming sites on the net: Twitch and Ustream.
Fast-forward to present day. Both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are still in their infancy. Sony recently reported that the Share button had been used over 100 million times, and 3.6 million gameplay broadcasts have been streamed directly to Twitch and Ustream. The immense popularity of the Share button isn’t coincidental, really. We hadn’t seen the ability to stream and share gameplay from a console as an easy and affordable option before Sony announced their specific plans. Prior to this, one would likely find themselves dropping hundreds of dollars on a low-quality piece of hardware that acted as a medium between the console and the computer. Now that the middleman has been cut out, everyone is getting their chance to release their inner creativity.
Of course, the new-found ease of access hasn’t exactly gone off without a hitch. There have been numerous reports of inappropriate content being streamed from the PlayStation 4 camera’s tech demo The Playroom. The Playroom is a set of mini-games designed to be accessed using the PlayStation 4 camera (a device that is currently considered quite rare; some Ebay listings are selling it for upwards of $150), and as a consequence, people have taken to streaming content that isn’t exactly related to gaming. Within a month of the PlayStation 4 releasing, Twitch had to ban Playroom streams due to constant sexual abuse and threats against children. Ustream, however, still allow The Playroom to be streamed, and decent and original entertainment has actually been created using it as a medium.
Now, it seems as though Microsoft is ready to jump on-board the streaming wagon, as it intends to add a full-blown Twitch App to the Xbox One on March 11th. This bring us to the shocking revelation that we have recently reported on: the Xbox One truly outperforms the PlayStation 4 in terms of broadcasting gameplay. Boasting a 1280×720 resolution as opposed to PlayStation’s 960×540, it promises to look noticeably better. The Xbox One Twitch App will also stream with a 2.5 mbps connection while the PS4 is capped at 1.7 mbps. One of the more common complaints regarding the PlayStation 4’s streaming abilities is that, oftentimes, the broadcasts seem to lag out, skip frames or simply fail altogether. It’s entirely possible that the Xbox One’s slight bump in allowed connection speeds will remedy the issues.
This all culminates with my two main questions: did Sony drop the ball on this and do they intend to upgrade their Twitch streaming?
As for the first question, many gamers have been left wondering why they have been given a seemingly gimped version of streaming. After all, PS4 users don’t even have the ability to archive and save their Twitch streams, something that is considered one of the most important aspects of broadcasting gameplay. For an overarching idea that seems so heavily built on sharing gameplay, it’s only logical that we should be able to keep a collection of our streams to show to people who weren’t there when they were live. A more striking pitfall of the PS4’s streaming is the on-screen layout. While streaming, if the user opts to allow comments to be displayed on screen, around 20% of the user’s screen is taken up by unattractive black bars used to display information. To make matters worse, the comments are placed at the bottom of the screen instead of the side, which only allows for two comments to be on screen at a time. For a more popular stream, this becomes a nightmare as the user is not able to keep up with the comments of all viewers.
Moving onto the second question, I’d have to wager that Sony will have a response to this soon. They haven’t been known as a company to miss an opportunity for a counter-attack, and it has been clear that one of their primary goals is staying two steps ahead of the Xbox One in every category possible. While I am no professional, I can only assume that the PlayStation 4 is completely capable of matching the Twitch capabilities set displayed by Microsoft’s console. Perhaps we will see our own dedicated Twitch App one day.
In the end, Sony really hyped up their ideas and innovations for gameplay sharing. They were so confident in it that they gave it a dedicated button on their controller, after all, replacing the usual ‘Select’ button that gamers have come to know and love. Despite the recent news of Twitch superiority on the One, Sony should still be applauded for their efforts. However, some of us may be feeling a tad spoiled by the great support and updates they’ve been able roll out. Sony has proven itself to be a company that wants to stay in-tune with its audience, and I hope it realizes that we would love to see improvements made to one of their alleged flagship PS4 features. After all, competition is wonderful, and it will only continue to drive the gaming industry to new and exciting heights.
This article is based solely on the opinions and thoughts of its author. Do you agree? Should Sony feel obligated to improve Twitch streaming capabilities based on how much it hyped the feature at the PS4 reveal? Tell us everything in the comments.