How Will Sony Change the PSN for the PS4?

After receiving countless entries for our Daily Reaction giveaway, we narrowed it down to a handful of our favorites, and chose one topic that will take away the grand-prize of a $20 PSN code. Terrell Smith asks – what will happen to the PlayStation Network as we move toward Sony’s next console, the PS4? With that, the Daily Reaction crew of Seb and Dan discuss what the future may hold for Sony’s online network, and just what are the problems we could see as we move forward.

[doctorstrange]

More updates

[Foolsjoker]

Cannot wait to start waiting to play my games all over again!

[finalgetsuga]

As long as it stays "free" i have no problem with anything. Sony will not disappoint

[kneon]

Firmware updates typically take 4-7 minutes for me start to finish. If it's taking longer than that don't blame Sony, blame your ISP.

[dbjj12088]

How about updates that download and install faster? I think there are plenty of updates :P

[Ring of Death]

Thats all am asking!. Download and install at the same time, and dedicated memory for the interface and PSN store. It has to be fast! a snap!

[GribbleGrunger]

I think you'll find that updates will load in the background on the PS4. Wait and see

[aCasualGamer]

PSN, or Sony Entertainment Network, is a great online service... but it needs to be revamped for sure. I mean it's a new console freaking release, i am positive they are renewing it. They should put in new features and rebuild the existing ones. For example... i don't want to freakin wait 20-40 seconds for my trophies to sync all the time. That should be automatic. Many more things that need to be improved but i'm certain that Sony are already way ahead of us. They won't ignore an improved software when the hardware gets improved.

[Knight_Crawler]

This is what people do not understand...PSN currently cost Sony alot of money to run and with the features that you are asking for it will cost even more to operate.

Sony will need to start charging for online next gen if they want to provide a top Online experience.

I know some of you believe that your favorite company loves you and does not care about your money but that is not the case.

Edit: Also think about it...if Sony startS charging for PSN and MS still charges for the Live what are people going to do, leave Sony and MS and buy a Will U.

[RememberThe357]

@Knight_Crawler
Sony is already making money on the PSN, and as they grow Plus they're seeing the revenue jump as well. The expanded features of the PSN would probably be tacked on the Plus so everything we have now would still be free but the bonus feature would cost you.

Thats the way they've been doing it and that is the way they will probably do it going forward. I'm 99% positive they wont charge for online going into the next gen.

[LAZL0-Panaflex]

Too funny

[TrendyGamers]

For the better.

[dbjj12088]

Hopefully they'll maintain what they're doing already. PlayStation Plus is kicka** and the PSN works well enough for free. Just a few tweaks and they'll have an amazing platform.

[DigitalRaptor]

My (probably ambitious) predictions:

What they should do/add:

There's just no way they can take the importance of social gaming/online for granted next gen, after Xbox Live seems to have sealed that aspect of console gaming up this gen.

- Gaikai for PS1, PS2 and PS3 games (solves backwards compatibility if absent). Instant streaming of demos, and full games as part of PS+.
- Due to increased RAM, multiple background tasks such as actively pausing the game, and opening web content in a (vastly updated?) browser. Basically, beging able to do anything in the PS4 OS whilst a game is paused, without having to exit the game.
- Modern interface, possibly a modernized version of XMB - not flashy but classy.
- Revamped social features including PSN profile integration, auto-synching trophies, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. There's rumours of Sony building a social network type thing, who knows...
- The rumored 15-minute gameplay recording could play a large role in social gaming. Streaming your gameing sessions to friends, uploading to YouTube, Facebook etc.
- PS+ expansion with new features such as cross-game chat, although I think these will be free network features, just like on Vita.
- Vita integration in some form. Remote play for every PS4 game perhaps, from the get-go?
- More Cloud wizardry!
- No damn installs for downloaded content (that's a personal request).
- Kick SCEE up the arse in regards to the PS Store.

What I don't see them changing:

- Free basic online play, because regardless of what people seem to think, they don't need to charge for it when PS+ exists and is growing popular.

[GribbleGrunger]

Nice post. I can't disagree with any of those points. Bubble.

[Lucreto]

I would like to see:

Improved trophy list- Like steam acheivements where they show your progress to getting the trophy.

Improved browser.

Cross game chat using skype and more integrated social feature.

Gaikai for PS1-PS3 games but with PS3 backward compatibility as well.

More involved cloud features.

[ExCest]

I would like it if they had a fully-featured skype. As far as I know (from personal experience), the skype on vita sucks.

Other than that, bring on the integration!

[Lifebanisher]

They Should also implement a standard text chat inside all the games that has multiplayer in their devkit so that people don't need to go to xmb just to read a message lbp's chat seems pretty good.

[BitbyDeath]

Home may come out of Beta!
VidZone further distributed
Youtube out of the box
PS Store will load faster
Hopefully better media sorting and labelling options

[TheFallenAngel]

As long as it stills free and I can play online for free, i will be happy.

[wikia]

I would love to see a more centralized PlayStation store in terms of region specific content. It would be real nice to have both the european store and the us store get the same releases and special deals.

[Soldierone]

I just want it to be more integrated with the Vita.

[konnerbllb]

I don't think they will change much, they are doing well with psn now.

[solid_warlord]

1) Party Chat
2) Ingame Chat
3) No more frequent firmware update
4) A unified system
5) Put Gakai to good use
6) NEVER CHARGE TO PLAY ONLINE, keep PS Plus as an option.
7) Party Chat
8) Ingame Chat
9) DO NOT HAVE MANY HOURS OF DOWNTIME EVERY 2 WEEKS.

All that is implemented, $ony will be on top tire of online. At the moment, PSN sucks. The only thing it has going for them is that its FREE. Free doesn't always mean its good but compared to M$'s XBOX Live, u get what u pay for and i don't like paying for it but its in another level compared to PSN, thats why i buy most multiplatform multiplayer games for XBOX.

[Karpetburnz]

I agree and disagree with some of your points, But PSN(free) doesnt suck, it does everything XBL Gold does but for free (everything but cross game chat). PS Plus on the other hand is far superior.

PSN(free version) should be compared to XBL silver, NOT Gold.

[MasterCornholio]

Cross game chat isnt available on the PS3 but it is on the Vita and its known as party chat. For the PS4 i expect Sony to integrate the majority of lives social features into PSN and they will maintain free online play as a big selling point of the console. People claim thats its impossible to do this because Microsoft is charging for it but there have been countless examples of companys that managed to provide the same type of service at no additional cost to the consumer.

[solid_warlord]

Also i forgotten to mention the LAG. Yes, there still lag on XBOX Live but nothing compared to PSN. PSN doesn't have a unified system like XBOX Live and off topic for a sec, Multiplatform online games frames drop like mad but that's due to devs who can't use the ridiculously hard cell processor. Next gen that shouldn't be an issue.

I don't care about Vita.

Do people even buy PS Plus, i don't see any point when the main package which playing games online is free.

Next gen, i hope PlayStation becomes successful as the PS2. PS3 for me was awefull, thats my view. It had in my view only Uncharted series that i enjoyed. MGS4 was the reason i brought a PS3 and itwas disappointing. So PS4 needs to implement the basics of modern online unified system like XBL. When they do, they may once again dominate.

[Tapioca Cold]

I don't want sony to charge for online service. Actually i don't know why people still tolerate Microsoft charging them for online. It baffles me. I stopped throwing money at Microsoft a while ago.

[black911]

Match microsoft in every way. Update the psn in eceryway way possible as long as it wont lose them alot of money because both consoles next gen will be equal in power.