More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

[Malacite]

News: New PS4 details - raises friend limit, headset included, 'very large' HDD - ComputerAndVideoGames.com

Sony has just wrapped up its PS4-centric presentation at GDC in San Francisco during which it shared new information on the high-end console.


First up, multiplayer gamers will be pleased to know that Sony will include a mono microphone/headset with every PS4, reports CVG's Andy Robinson, who was in attendance, via Twitter.The firm also said that a split/screen multiplayer game could use the PS4 Eye to identify where players are sat and move the windows around to be suit each player's location in front of the TV.
The DualShock 4's lightbar - the illuminated panel across the top of the controller - will assist player recognition by shining a different colour on each controller in use. The lightbar, Sony said, can also be used for in-game effects such as gun muzzle flash health bars.

Sony showed off cute augmented reality demo featuring little robots living inside the controller. The could player shake the pad and press buttons to interact with the robots.
Sony also confirmed during the presentation that it will raise the PSN friend limit on PS4, according to IGN. It didn't specify what the new limit will be, but currently the PS3 enforces a 100-friend limit.
It also promised that every PS4 will come with a "very large hard drive", but again held off confirming capacities.
IGN also reports that the DualShock 4 controller will come with an extension port on it - likely to provide the possibility for add-ons in future. It will also revert back to regular digital buttons, doing away with the pressure-sensitive buttons on the PS2 and PS3 controllers due to the fact that no one used them on PS3.

The PS4 will also charge the DualShock 4 (via a USB cable) even when on standby, unlike the PS3, which has to be fully switched on to provide power to drained controllers.
Sony has pencilled in a "holiday 2013" PS4 release date for the machine.

[Icemage]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

Don't care about headsets. All it means is that more 13 year olds with voices that can shatter glass will be shouting in my ear in multiplayer until I mute them. Not something I'm looking forward to.

Other than that, PS4's design and philosophy looks good to me as a gamer. Simple and powerful for developers, approachable and streamlined for gamers. Sony's being very open about being game-focused with PS4, and their recent moves with PSN and PlayStation Plus give me hope that someone will make it out of generation 8 with a healthy market.

Assuming they don't price it at something absurd like $600 again, I'll be buying one on launch to pair with my Vita.


Icemage

[Firewind]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

As long as the heasdsets are better than the flimsy bits of plastic junk that barely fit on your head that you get with the 360 it could be nice I suppose?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

I want to see Sony and MS alike substantially revise how the online experience is moderated before I begin to care about free headsets. What I mean by this is players that are muted by other players on PSN and XBL are already stat-tracked. If this is a stat that can be tracked from player-to-player and game-to-game, that means developers and platform-holders alike have the power to fully moderate their online experiences by automation. If enough players are muting a particular player upon meeting them for being a toxic, hate-fueled asshat, then they can make it so said toxic, hate-fueled asshat is auto-muted for the benefit of other players the second they start playing any game. The technology is there, so use it.

This would take a lot of wind out of the attention-seeking assholes and maybe encourage others to use their headsets and not just retreat to party chats to get away from it. If Sony's going to give everyone a headset by default, they absolutely need to be considering a better social experience because like Icemage I couldn't begin to care about free headsets for the implications of that already has.

[Firewind]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

How many Online Games are even moderated at all nevermind moderated well? Voice comms aren't logged either so it's damn near impossible to tell what is genuine or not unless someone is pretty clearly breaking the ToS and even then, the vast majority of Devs/Publishers don't give a shit as long as it isn't costing them money (Like the infinite XP boosters exploit that SWTOR had when the cash shop first launched), or someone isn't making money of them (RMT, Account selling).

The SWTOR one was pretty egregious since that exploit had been there since Beta and had crippled any sort of income from crafting Biochem Consumables (Stims, Adrenals and Medipacks). Basically using a consumable while in the middle of the Resting animation (and several other channelled abilities) didn't consume them. The devs didn't care until people realised that you could do it with Cash Shop items. THEN came the fixes and banhammers. The people that took videos to show Bioware were even given warnings and some were even handed temporary bans for daring to show the devs.

FFXI is another great example. How many people actually got banned for using obvious exploits and third party programmes intended to cheat (map hacks, fishing bots, auto-vokes etc)? A tiny fraction of the people did and the ones that did were the ones that were causing SE to lose money.

As I said in another thread, anonymity is great on paper until the human element is added, then it goes to hell. You can't be punched over the face on the internet and the majority of things the Internet Tough Guys would say over comms is not something they would say if you were sat right next to them

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

How many Online Games are even moderated at all nevermind moderated well? Voice comms aren't logged either so it's damn near impossible to tell what is genuine or not unless someone is pretty clearly breaking the ToS and even then, the vast majority of Devs/Publishers don't give a shit as long as it isn't costing them money

I'm not saying they have to actually be moderated, it can be automated. If a player is commonly muted by others that data can be collected by a computer to auto-mute them for the benefit of others in the future. Auto-mute by human consensus and computers rather than needing a moderator. No one cares if a loud and obnoxious asshat is "just kidding."

If said asshat sees that he can be moderated and censored in this way (or at least forced to only play with his ilk), he'll modify his behavior if he wants to socialize with other people online. Pavlov's dog, behavior modification and all that. This can even be applied to text messages on the network if they're just flagged as harassment enough (and I'm sure there are plenty of female gamers that might appreciate that, though it would mean the end of Fat, Ugly or Slutty.)

[cidbahamut]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

Automated muting sounds like it could go very wrong very quickly.

[Armando]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

Automated muting sounds like it could go very wrong very quickly.

Not if the threshold for getting flagged is too high for an individual or small group to trigger it, and/or you need consecutive offenses to get flagged. Assholes tend to be assholes on a daily basis.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

Automated muting sounds like it could go very wrong very quickly.

Here's the thing you're missing, though, the prevailing (and pathetically dismissive) view is already "If you don't like them, just mute them." If that's the most effort we can expect from players in cultivating a welcoming environment, then the assholes win and PSN and XBL remain the toxic, unattractive networks that they are. I am pretty sure Sony and MS want to expand their audience and grow these networks.

Right now my best "avoid asshole" option is to just go to Steam or play a multiplayer title on Wii where there may be no option for voice chat. I know people who will swear by that Wii U version of Black Ops II just for the peace and quiet and don't miss the 13 year-old racists at all.

The only really, really nice people I met online this gen were Demon's and Dark Souls players, though I'm sure the Journey also achieved a similar effect.. Perhaps this is because they took voice chat away and made players interact on different terms, but every message in my inbox over the Souls games was positive "good game" kinds of messages. You also get a little of that from the fighting community so long as they're not outright obsessed with rank grinding.

We need a bit more of those friendly moments and there is strong evidence removing the soapbox can change how people interact.

[Malacite]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

How about we take it a step further and start moderating people who Team Kill with any sort of regular frequency? I'm honestly beyond sick and tired of not being able to report Team Killers. and to a lesser extent, Tea Baggers. I'm honestly a little disgusted that 343i decided to fully embrace that, going so far as to glorify it in Halo 4 via the Mantis & Hologram... it says a lot about the mentality/maturity of the devs. Yeah it's kinda funny to do now & then but a lot people are just so obnoxious about it.

But back to my main point, deliberate Team Killing really should be an offense as you're disrupting other people's enjoyment of a game.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

That's more of a developer issue than a PSN or XBLA issue, one that can be remedied by friendly fire settings within hosted games, at that

[Firewind]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

BBQ you are also implying that deterrents work which really is not the case when you look at society as a whole.

I also don't see where the assholes win if they are just being ignored by people muting them. PSN and XBox Live will still be "Toxic Environments" with your automatic auto-mute idea and if anything, it gives more things for the greifers to exploit when they get their friends to all report one guy so that they lose their rights to voice chat.

People can still be racist assholes without VOIP. FFXI, Forza, the fighting game community, Pokemon, Minecraft and the new Sim City are all examples of games without voice chat, all with ways for being to behave like idiots online and ruin everyone's game.

I don't see what encourages a welcoming community to get together in the easily abusable system that you are proposing. The sheer size of the community for games like Black Ops 2 means that you're going to run into idiots more often because there's more people in general to run into. I don't see where running away from voice chat instead of engaging with the community encourages a welcoming environment either. If anything it tells me that someone is whining about a game's community without even bothering to get involved, and expecting other people to deal with their issues and problems for them instead of getting of their backside and doing something constructive to make a "Toxic" Community more welcome and inviting.

[cidbahamut]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

That and censorship always tends to end badly.

[Malacite]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

Plus, even with friendly fire disabled (and I like it on for more skill/realism) there's ways of team killing and griefing.

For example, in BF3 it's really easy to just hop in a jeep, accelerate towards someone and then bail out at the last second. Jeep runs the guy down, kills him, but you don't get hit with a TK penalty. Halo had a decent system for it, giving you the option to boot them but they messed with it too much. It was probably too sensitive at coming up after the 1st instance, but now it takes 3 or more tries some times (it's totally random, as sometimes i get it on the 1st try too) and so they need to make it stricter.

Better yet, keep a track record of these people - if someone has a lot of TK's on their record then the prompt should come up the 1st time every time they do it. Get booted so many times and you get banned for a week and getting increasingly harsh.

[cidbahamut]

Re: More PS4 info - FREE HEADSETS!

I find team killing absolutely hysterical. More games should give me that option. It makes playing with friends that much more enjoyable.