News & Rumours: Playstation 4/ Orbis *spin*

Sony explained at one of their events (February reveal or E3) that multiple users can be logged into a single PS4 so that trophies are assigned to the player, not the system. This still leaves the friend list problem but we don't know if the system limits access to friend lists by the 'owner' of the system, or anybody logged in. I'm presuming there are no limits otherwise this hugely limits access from other PS4 systems.

Until Sony release more info on the multiple account issue, it's impossible to say if this is a problem. It may well be the same ecosystem model as Apple; a single iTunes account for family purchases, individual iCloud accounts for each person.

Poor for families with multiple PS4s. It's a launch policy that they can revisit it. I think they would be wise to, at the very least, allow the user to designate a 'secondary' PS4 with the same flexibility as the primary system.

I'm guessing Sony/publisher concerns will be dorms.

 

Those are the sharing polices for woks for PS4 outside your home; for PS4 in the same home might be different.
If PS4 can detect other PS4 in the vicinity then it might just be allowed to share games with those systems.

 

It's also pretty much how the 360 worked, without the added annoyance of not being able to watch Netflix while someone else plays online unless you pay for multiple Gold accounts. You can manipulate the PS4 system somewhat based on which system you assign as your "primary" console, but neither Sony nor Microsoft's goal has ever been to let people get two games for the price of one.

 

I don't see anything being gained. Currently, you can have two consoles access all your content bought with your account without needing to sign in to that account. On PS4, that's reduced to one console. There's no content sharing in the family except by all using the one account for everything.

I think it reasonable to allow every console on the same premises to access all content to all accounts on that PS4. That way you couldn't leech games you don't have access to from flatmates, say (not without them registering their account on your PS3), but you could have 3 or 4 consoles all with the same library. They could also add a hard limit to something like 3/4 consoles that your account can be shared on, allowing for you to sign in on any console but not store games on that console that others can access.

If dad can't buy a game off PSN that kids can play upstairs while the livign room PS4 is in use, and a whole separate copy needs to be bought, Sony need to provide a more reasonable licensing solution - pay £2 (on a £5 game) for each extra license up to 3, say.

 

Sure, but then they might not revisit it, at which point I have to question if I really want to buy a console that only one person in the household can play the games at a time. With PS3, we knew about game sharing from the off long before anyone had multiple PS3s, and this meant people who expected to get multiple PS3's over the lifetime of the console knew they could share content across those boxes. People looking at PS4 now with the same future vision (get one now, get a new one in a year or two for upstairs, get a slim down the line and put the old console in the boy's room) are going to be seeing that they can't share content, making the idea of multiple consoles very limited, especially as we move towards DD. In PS2's day it didn't matter as you could share disks and play anywhere. Now if your games are bought download, you still want the functionality of sharing those games around the household. I don't think that's unfair use (even if copyright wranglers are wanting to go to a license-per-viewer/player model).

 

Could you share PS+ benefits to other non PS+ users on your primary PS3 system?

BTW, how would you verify multiple PS4 systems in the same household? Local network broadcast message?

I think in your scenario you could deactivate your primary system downstairs & reactivate the system upstairs as your primary system. Then your kids could play your games without you signing in. Not as ideal but still workable.

Tommy McClain

 

If I can make a suggestion that has served me well over many years. If a device doesn't meet your minimum requirements, don't buy it. Don't buy based on a promise from the manufacture or based on it's potential to change and improve.

So if you want to do what you've outlined above, skip the PS4 until Sony support it.

Dorms? Hotels? Hostels? Those types of domicile are the problem. And until a policy can be formulated that easily encompasses households but excludes other types of place where potentially large numbers of sales may be lost, it's probably not going to change.

 

PS3 already detects other nearby media serves, so in theory PS4 could detect other PS4.
it could work like this

-My PS4 detects another PS4 nearby.
-Using my account I can grant permission to another account to download my content from his/hers PS4 BUT that content stays active as log as that PS4 stays withing the Wi-fi range of my PS4.
He/she doesn't need to go online.
-If I revoke permission then the content it's locked.

For home sharing it could work.
No?

 

Perhaps they are looking to the second screen functionality to provide multi device gaming. That is platform agnostic though I'm not sure whether your PS4 is out of action whilst doing it, like the PS3 is currently.

 

You don't have to be a dick about it. Of course I have that right and I'll exercise it, as will everyone else. Discussion means talking about scenarios and sharing opinions. If one doesn't want to hear people's opinions about how they disagree with some factor or other of a product (we should never discuss anything - just don't buy the product) then don't bother visiting a discussion forum.

Yeah, gosh, I never thought of that. We should make sure every one of millions of family households shouldn't share the library because a few thousand dorms and hostels could share games for free. Sony would miss out how many countless sales because people would just go stay in a hotel to play a game instead of buying it at home.

Well then, let's discuss possible solutions instead of just saying, "That's how it is. Buy PS4 or not, but certainly don't talk about it."

And I already suggested a reasonable solution, that you need your user account on the PS4 to share your content within the same location, but you cannot put your account on more than 3/4 PS4s. That'd limit game sharing among students to 3/4. Basically the same as PS3 but with a location filter to stop free game sharing and limit the distribution to only the household.

 

Maybe Sony can allow you to apply for a multi-console household permit. For $100 they will send a rep to your home to verify the domestic situations and record the hardware IDs and then grant you access.

 

I was being sincere so really don't appreciate the insult. I continue to be surprised by the amount of folks who will buy something without having checked it meets their basic requirements. It was something my parents taught me. If that makes me a dick, so be it.

Yeah, but it's not limited to dorms, hostels and hotels is it? I live in central London which is a pretty densely populated area. This is stumbler right now - 43 wifi networks detected!

What policy would differentiate my family from my neighbours should I chose to abuse the system? Because abuse leading to lost sales will drive limits to flexibility.

Same location/proximity can still be exploited, especially in cities where population densities are higher. And where do you draw the line at location? 25m? 50m? 100m? When your kid goes off to college, they lose access to family purchases. I don't know what number of families have 2 or more PlayStations, it would be useful to know so as to gauge what effort Sony are likely to make to make it work. I'd prefer tying systems together by credit card (naturally, because it works for me!) because I doubt many people would be willing to share credit card information. But restricting online purchases to a single card but be problematic for some.

 

I'd prefer where you could just have two systems activated, but there are also upsides to this setup. With that single account, it looks like I have access to all my content on any PS4. Previously, I could only have downloads active on two PS3s. So for me personally, it's a step up. Another step up is that if I understand it correctly, I could have my son play under his account on the primary PS4, and I could play with him online on the second PS4, with one purchase of the game - this is currently also not always possible as far as I know. It's a step down if I would be using two PS4s and various people would be logging onto that second one wanting to tracking trophies separately - though it depends per game now as well. Some games limit you to a single PSN account when playing online.

The downside scenario is currently not one that affects me, but I could see my son having his own account in the future suffering from this when I tell him to play in the study so we can watch something on the primary TV.

 

It probably won't be a major problem, though.

In case a son (S) wants to play his father's (F) PSN games with S's account on S's PS4, F just has to set up S's PS4 as F's primary system. That way, S can play all of F's PSN games on S's PS4 without having to use F's account, while F can still play all of his PSN games on "his" (secondary) PS4 by logging in with F's own account.

It's a little of a hassle, yes. But it should do for the time being. If you still want to have MORE than two TVs connected to a PS4 in your house, you'll be able to just go out and buy some VITA TV boxes for a fracture of what another PS4 would cost and stream stuff.

The only REAL problem arises if you want to use the PSN games of ONE account with more than two people simultaneously - e.g. daughter, son, and father ALL want to play father's PSN games on three different PS4s at the SAME time ... in which case you're probably just one terribly rich, happy family of avid video gamers anyway - and had better support the game devs by buying more digital copies of their games ... or just stick to buying disk-based copies until SONY (hopefully) launches more flexible sharing plans for digital distribution

I imagine they could just sell slightly more expensive "family copies" of PSN games that are designed to be activated on more than one "primary" system right from the start. Even remote "friends" would probably become "family members" very fast in that case ...

 

1. Isn't that what the PS Vita TV is supposed to be able to do? That could work as a small second console that gives you local wi-fi access to the main PS4. It may not be an option at launch, but it's still on the table for future use.

2. There's still disc games to consider as well. That may not be the most convenient thing, but you still get access to games on multiple consoles while being offline. If you need to access online multiplayer, then you'll need to sign online no matter what.

3. Then there's the more notable option, sign-in to your primary console on a secondary console to access your downloaded content and PS Plus benefits. "You need to sign-in online to access digital content bought online while on a secondary system?" If you need to access online content besides the main system, then this is a no-brainer in reasonable terms.

Maybe secondary PS4s will have a timed sign-in approach, where you'll stay signed-in for a limited amount of time (24 to 48 hours maybe). We just need to know the actual limitations behind the sharing process, which could be fair enough to use without a serious loophole to exploit.

 

The two companies seem to be converging on how this is being handled. I would also agree that it isn't like how PS3 "sharing" is done. It seems pretty damn close to how the Ms XB360 "sharing" is done, with the exception of the subscriber benefits being extended to entire console. That does not happen on XB360 Gold, but it does on XB1 Gold.

I was hoping for Sony to push for their current PS3 "sharing" being extended. O'ell, it's still pretty good in my opinion.

 

The problem, obviously, is that easy game sharing has never been their goal, especially not after the way the liberal 5 system limit was so thoroughly abused. The new account system is designed to make it very flexible for people to share their stuff in a single console home (which will account for 99% of the customer base) and allow people to take their shit with them when they roam. If people want to have 4 people all playing the same games at the same time in a single house, it's honestly not that unreasonable for Sony to expect those people to buy additional copies. People have never been able to play physical games that way.

 

I only mention this here as the two policies seem very similar, so this might provide some basis for a starting point on Sony's. Currently MS allows for content license transfers on XB360 from one console to another once every four months. Who knows how often Sony will allow.