Sharing is caring

The PS4 already has a wonderful sharing option that allows gamers to literally export video and images across Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. You can also manually export files via USB stick and host them on DLNA via PC connectivity, allowing you to take your content anywhere.

With System Update 2.00 the PS4 received Share Play, a feature that had been long-awaited since it was announced pre-launch. This mode essentially lets players share their game experience with a friend over the PlayStation Network, giving them control over the session.

It’s one of the most unique tools I’ve seen in any generation of console gaming, and it serves as a really great example of innovation.

Share Play really is more like an interactive demo. You can chat with friends in a party while you play, making it an engaging and enjoyable experience. Apart from giving control over a session, players can spectate their friends as they play the game as well as play co-operatively via local play games. The latter is more like bringing couch co-op through the internet.

Share Play

But Share Play has its faults, too. The mode is often very laggy, regardless of your connection settings, and is throttled by Sony’s ill-maintained PlayStation Network. Sometimes visuals will be pixellated or badly rendered, along with full-on seconds of lag, defeating the purpose of playing FPS games where split-second decisions matter the most.

Share Play is a great feature but it still has its kinks. Sony needs to refine it more to make it more accessible, and interestingly enough they still haven’t provided minimum/recommended connection settings for the mode.

While System Update 2.00 brought us an interesting new feature, it also brought trouble. The update introduced a cavalcade of glitches and bugs, and messed things up right and proper, furthering that Sony isn’t exactly savvy with its own tech just quite yet.

Bugs included PS4’s not being able to be roused out of Rest Mode if a disc was in the tray. Some systems would reset themselves randomly. Firmware v2.00 even kept PlayStation 4 owners out of Evolve‘s Big Alpha test thanks to compatibility errors. It also crashed Dragon Age: Inquisition during review periods, forcing Bioware to prepare day-one updates right out of the gate.

Thankfully Sony addressed the situation in a timely manner, which says volumes about their resolve. But it took not one, but two extra patches just to fix the errors that v2.00 brought along, which was more than a bit irksome to gamers.