PS4 Firmware Update 3.00 Is One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Push Square: "Sony often gets criticised for being slow to update its console in comparison to the competition, but the reality is that the PlayStation 4 launched in a much better place than people give it credit for. There are obvious tweaks that still need to be made to the user interface to improve it – folders, friends notifications, and so forth – but even on day one the device was slick, snappy, and well designed. However, there's a worry with firmware update v3.00 that rather than iterating upon what it's already got, the manufacturer's starting to mess things up."

[Christopher]

***Take the new Favourite Groups feature, which we always assumed was going to be a friends filter. ***

So, it's a negative because of your assumption? Interesting.

*** Instead, we're not entirely sure what it is***

It's group chat... how is that hard to understand? Do people not use the Internet or similar devices? No one has ever sent texts to a group of people at once? No one has used a chat group? IRC? Nothing?

*** past 24 hours as people realise that it's not entirely what was advertised***

It is what was advertised, though...

***a great idea that's impeded by the fact that there's no search button. It took us nearly a day to figure out how we could effectively invite readers of the website to the Push Square page, and it really shouldn't ***

Agree there should be a search function, but it took you a day on how to invite people to the community? Really?

I'm questioning your capabilities as end users here, not the system itself. It has, right on the top of the community page, a button that says "Invite players to join this Community".

[GTgamer]

lol you just roasted him :D

[pivotplease]

Eh pushsquare isn't that bad at all. Better than Dualshockers as far as PS focused sites go. It's really just an aggressive article sprung from someone's personal vendetta. The 3.0 upgrade is still underwhelming in many ways. People have been nagging for minimalist features for two years now. Things PS3 launched with. All of the current gen systems are guilty of this too.

[MasterCornholio]

Like a weenie at a campfire.

:)

These articles are just so dumb.

[nveenio]

Two steps back? Wait. Did they remove features? No? Then how is it backward?

Dumb article.

[Thatguy-310]

That's what I don't understand why people are criticizing the group feature. On phones if you enter a group chat you get notifications as so as people start chatting with one another. If you're done with the chat then get out and join back in when you want to chat again. It's not rocket science guys.

[TKCMuzzer]

Agree, I think it's quite obvious how it works and your also right that people use these kind of features all the time. Trouble is, this is the games community and there must be complaints no matter what.

[steven83r]

Ya shouldn't be too hard to figure out. Except on phones they still haven't figured out how to end a group chat without everyone deleting the chat.

[IGiveHugs2NakedWomen]

Well when you see an article that has something saying "The PS4 is being criticized for it's lack of updates" when it hasn't you already know that it's written by someone with an agenda.

[TKCMuzzer]

Lol, 24 hrs to learn how to invite to the community, that just really, really nooooobish. Don't blame Sony for your shortcomings.

I also think you might find the author may click the disagree button on your comment.............well thats if he can find it. :)

[johndoe11211]

"I also think you might find the author may click the disagree button on your comment.............well thats if he can find it. :)"

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You just won the internet mate. I wish I could have given you 3 bubbles.

[subtenko]

This is original N4G comment content right here folks! XD Gold!

[GribbleGrunger]

I think the lack of a search option in Communities is a deliberate strategy to be honest. Communities is new and people are enjoying it but creating 'wants' or 'needs' for something new is always a good idea simply because it gives you yet another narrative to engage your userbase and the internet in general. People will constantly talk about how great Communities are but they'll also constantly talk about how it needs a search function.

After a given time Sony will add search and suddenly Communities has yet another big boost in exposure around the internet. Give people a little of what they didn't know they wanted and they'll then be hungry for improvement. Give them everything they didn't know they wanted and the conversation is exhausted within months. Exposure, exposure, exposure.

[Christopher]

I'm also noticing a bit of delay in things showing up nationally. I've added people as friends and they still don't see the community under my profile, so I've had to add them. So, having a search feature may return false results if the community isn't well established.

Hope they get that sorted sooner than later or at least minimized.

[TheLordOfStuff]

@Christopher

+ bubs for a nice little roast on a stupid article

[Cryptcuzz]

"I'm questioning your capabilities as end users here, not the system itself. It has, right on the top of the community page, a button that says "Invite players to join this Community"

I find it funny how the author said it took them a day to figure out how to invite people to their community. SMH.

Nothing to see here folks, Christopher just invalidated the author with just one comment!

[audiocafe]

Well said.

[hulk_bash1987]

This article is a joke and whoever put it together is obviously trying to get clicks.

[subtenko]

Yea I know, thats why I didnt click ;) I just comment with you folks about the title ^)^

[DragonDDark]

If you want to find a player's community, search for that person's ID and see his "communities" on his profile.
Hope this helps.

[Harryseveruspotter]

Just roasted...!!!!

[KwietStorm_BLM]

It is a negative for me, and I'm not going to act like it's all good just because it was given to us. That's not how improvements are made to anything. I thought it was a friends filter myself. There are a lot of people complaining about the automatic group message thing, and it is justified. If you want to create a group message, you can go ahead and do that. Everybody doesn't need to be getting notifications that the group picture was changed, name was updated, player was added.

[Christopher]

If you don't want notifications, then don't add them to your favorites group. Simple as that. The favorites are for group messages you want to get notifications on. Simple as that.

[christian hour]

I dunnno if it's just been a flukey past two days, but I haven't been suffering from those horrible download speeds that have been plaguing Europe for the past year and a half.

It used to peak at 200kbps unless I spent 10 minutes doing pause resume and then doing NOTHING else with the console...

Now I've been getting a nice 10-20mbps on the reg the last two days :)

Can anyone else verify this? Or is this just a total fluke and by typing this message karma is gonna kill me and my tearaway download is going to grind to a halt!?

Let me know! Cos if its true, then this trumps EVERYTHING else on SSU-3.0... The months have been cold in Europe XD

[christian hour]

Nevermind... Totally jinxed it by making this post! :'(

[S2Killinit]

I think the article is talking about what they "think" the update will be, rather than what it "is". they are guessing, sort of.

[TwoForce]

@pivotplease Yeah, i'm not sure about Push Square. Because they are not that very optimistic everything. Well, i do like some their information, but most of them can be cynical.

[showtimefolks]

i guess do more research its an update people both psn and xblibve will get many more updates. Is it possible to make everyone happy? Is it possible to make everyone happy with psn-plus and xbox live free games?

there will be those in vast majority who care very little and than there is the vocal minority who acts like only their opinions matter

i wanted a media player on ps4 and i got one, thank you sony. both ms and sony know what features people want, but it takes time to make those features available

please give these companies a little break. always complaining about everything single thing

[WildArmed]

Obviously if the system update doesn't hold up to my imaginary expectation that weren't outlined by Sony.. it's 'two steps back'. /s

Seriously, does the author even understand english? They delivered everything, and took out nothing? How it that moving forward?

Intelligence is a hard trait to come by these days.

Also, not sure why the search feature was taken out since the beta.. hmm

[freshslicepizza]

you didn't really elaborate on the new community group thing and how everyone within that group gets spammed. or how anyone within that group can edit or add others even if you are the one who created it. sounds not bad if you have a tight collection of buddies you trust but it sounds more like remote access for anyone to misuse while getting bombarded with spam every time there's something new.

[Christopher]

The "spamming" isn't a secret, you're adding people to favorites solely to get messages. That's the whole point with it. There is no mystery or elaborate element here. You can create groups and if you want to receive notifications, you can favorite them.

You're not getting spammed if you opted to receive notifications from them.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

Saying "simple as that" repeatedly, doesn't mean anything. The point is it adds a favorite group, which is great for large friend list sorting. It also *automatically* adds a group message, and to my knowledge has no option to disable this. Furthermore, if you leave the group message, your favorite group is deleted. This is not efficient design, at all. How can you disagree? How can anyone disagree? I already have message notifications turned off. That isn't my point. The point is every person in the group gets notifications if they have it turned on. This is completely unnecessary, and the group message should be optional, not automatic.

If the only point of this feature was for group messaging, i.e spam, then that still leaves the problem of friend sorting/organization. It wouldn't be that big of a problem, along with other requested features, if we got updates more frequently than several months apart. Smaller updates with just a few features people have been asking for for years would alleviate some of the UX growing pains.

[Christopher]

***The point is it adds a favorite group, which is great for large friend list sorting.***

But that's not what it is for... it's for sending and receiving messages from a group of people and getting notified of those messages.

You're trying to turn it into something it isn't.

***Furthermore, if you leave the group message, your favorite group is deleted. This is not efficient design, at all.***

Why not? The only point of the group is to get notifications. If you want to start receiving them again, just join back in. Have you never experienced MMS on a phone? This is the exact same thing.

***If the only point of this feature was for group messaging, i.e spam, then that still leaves the problem of friend sorting/organization.***

So, let me get this straight, you saying the because it doesn't do what you want it to do, then this other problem is now more of a problem? Or are you trying to say that you want something and it's not in the patch but trying to make something else that is in the patch out to be the reason why it's not there?

I'm completely confused. It's as if people are trying to turn this into something else when it is just one thing.

[Wenapee]

Its no two steps back, its just one or two step forward, while it could have been 3 steps forward. The update feels rushed in some places. All are fine ideas but like the community thing really needs a search feature.

I am sure these aspects will be worked on in next updates.

[TKCMuzzer]

I wonder how many people are aware if you go over your game details in the main XMB then you have the option to view all communities for that game.

[deadpoolio316]

Probably not alot because that would require a full 30 seconds of investigation....And they would rather use that 30 seconds complaining about something on the internet for not having instructions for the dim witted stuck on stupid crowd

[Kurisu]

I do now! That's pretty cool.

[KwietStorm_BLM]

I didn't know until I found it myself, but that is not a search feature, regardless. That is game specific.

[Harryseveruspotter]

Wonderfull...!!!!

[TKCMuzzer]

Wrong, my reply was valid as it is another way of searching, which some people may have not known about. I did not say your comment about a search option was wrong, it seems you are a little sensitive for some reason.

[Orbilator]

Cause he's a troll and his bridge collapsed.

[christian hour]

Is that thing where it speaks out the comments people leave during a broadcast a new feature? Or has that been there a while? Only noticing it now! Apparently it will only work if i set my language to english(us) though XD Why no english(uk)...

I've always wondered, why doesnt it say English (EU) for that option, I mean the UK aren't the only english speaking country in Europe, their island neighbours to the west speak English too ya know, and we don't particularly like being associated with the UK since it was only 100 years ago when we finally fought back for our freedom form their tyranny XD

[CuddlyREDRUM]

I think the main problem with it is that it is the major Fall update.

They mainly took out something that worked, the USB Music Player, and took it out. Merging it with the Media Player makes no sense as there is a loud ping anytime you use the interface, so if you listen to music loud it is annoying as hell.

[Eonjay]

They are obsessed over the group chat function. Obsessed. I figured out the community invite thing in about 10 minutes. Its not that hard guys. Just let your reader know what user name to search for and then select the Community option under that user. There were articles about how to do this about 15 hours ago.

[spektical]

Didn't think I'd be interested in many of the features... but the group feature is fantastic. I have a private group of friends who play destiny and another for battlefield.

Additionally joining these communities makes it easy to get a prty instead of going to reddit and asking for fireteams or squadding up.

[Christopher]

Yeah, there's already a very active Destiny LFG community. Very helpful for raids.

[TheLoCoRaven]

I think they may have held back some features for this years PSX announcements. Could be wishful thinking.

[Christopher]

One can only hope, to be honest. While I understand the point of 3.00 release, since the community features are a major update to the core OS, I do hope they are planning some updates before the end of the year that add some more functionality to a multitude of things.

[Harryseveruspotter]

What can we do just hope....!!!!

[Chaosdreams]

A day to figure out a feature? I wonder how long it takes him to insert a disk into the console.

[Hoffmann]

AAA Gamejournalism.

[formanbradley]

How is this even defendable? The number one thing we've asked for is FOLDERS... not more stupid social features that will blow up youtube and twitter because of all the mlg 12 year-olds. Seriously... folders are the most BASIC of functions that were even on the freakin PS3, there is literally no excuse.

[u4one]

if i'm being completely honest, i'm a little underwhelmed with the update but... i wouldn't call it two steps back. all of all of the steps are forward, and excellent steps forward at that. if anything, they just weren't dramatic steps forward.

UI may not be completely perfect for the new features but... they are new features.. they will get tweaked in subsequent versions to become even better. lets not forget that until now, ithey weren't there at all so thats a win to me.

[Errefus]

its just miiverse with the ability to create threads on each game.

[AudioEppa]

As a die-hard PlayStation fan, this is still kind of strange after all the years of the opposite.

Last generation Sony at every corner was getting criticized with the feeling that they couldn't do anything right, now even the slightest bit of criticism towards them is met with a off with your head mob mentality, I suppose my inner fanboy enjoys it, but at the same time I guess I've grown up and I feel like ps4 does a lot of great things, but it's UI design isn't too impressive from the XMB on ps3.

Now I understand for some people the increased speed and getting into the game quicker is all that matters, but this is 2015, and the technology in things that other companies do with tablets, phones and the things we could already do on our computers should be standard in consoles by now.

Hopefully future FW updates can take things from mediocre into anything better then what we got now.

[jokerisalive]

External hdd support? Folders? I mean it cant be that hard for Sony to add those two in particular. Amazing reading these comments how some people will attack others for voicing their opinions as well. Unless you have stocks in Sony that deflate in value due to others being critical of certain shortcomings I suggest you stop trying to blindly defend everything SONY and just let people express their point of view. Ridiculous.

[TwoForce]

Well, I understand the frustration that we didn't have those features from the start. I don't know it will be next update. I do feel we need more voice to force Sony to listen to us. It's gonna take a while but we have to try.

[jjb1981]

No more error CE-38612-0 code anymore!!! Now I can play my games from my 3TB Nyko databank.

[maybelovehate]

Group feature is an interesting idea, consoles desperately need better ways to communicate with clans.

[JonnyBigBoss]

When can we properly organize the main menu? I'm tired of all the illogically scattered icons on my PS4 main menu. I'm sick o fit.

[raggy-rocket]

I'm an Xbox fan and I LOVE this new update from what I've seen. That community idea is genius. It's a great way of uniting players together if their friends don't have the console or something. Also great for finding a community of people who love the same things you do. I'd love that for a Halo community on Xbox. I get the search button criticism, but I'm sure that'll come soon enough. The group chat is also another awesome idea. I haven't even got the console, so I get my praise isn't that valid, but I don't know what people are moaning about if I'm being honest.

[FN4GM]

No but another propaganda article against Sony is two steps back for gaming journalism.