According to Sony President Shuhei Yoshida, an always-on internet connection was never a feature to be included in the PS4 console.
Yoshida confirmed in an interview that Sony “didn’t consider” an always-on DRM for the PS4 as many people don’t have a suitable internet connection.
“Did we consider it? No, we didn’t consider it,” said Yoshida. “The main reason being that many countries don’t have robust internet connections.”
Microsoft has been scrutinised of late over rumours that the Xbox 720 or Xbox Infinity console could require a constant internet connection for any functions. In fact, Microsoft Studios’ Creative Director Adam Orth lost his job over a Twitter comment talking about the always-on connectivity of the next Xbox, using the hashtag ‘#dealwithit’.
“It makes sense for people to have internet connections to play online games, but for offline games there are many countries that we saw do not really have robust internet,” said Yoshida. “We didn’t even consider that. You can play offline, but you may want to keep it connected.”
For the PS4, Sony is introducing greater social media integration, especially via the new Share Button on the PS4 Dualshock 4 controller. Despite this though, Yoshida still says gamers can use the PS4 in whichever way suits their own gaming style.
“You can go offline totally. Social is big for us, but we understand there are some people who are anti-social! So if you don’t want to connect to anyone else, you can do that.”
The PS4 was unveiled in February, packing an x86-64 Jaguar AMD CPU with 8GB of GGDR5 RAM. The Xbox Infinity, as it is rumoured to be called, will be unveiled by Microsoft at a dedicated new Xbox event on May 21.
We think that a required always-on connectivity is a ridiculous idea. Read why in our opinion piece entitled new Xbox 720: Always-on DRM would be arrogant, foolhardy and ill-judged.
Via: Game Informer (print)
