PS4 Update Sneaks in Key New Features

While most people know that the new firmware update for PlayStation 4 allows gamers to remote play via Windows PC (but not Windows 7, sadly), Sony managed to sneak through a number of appealing new features that didn’t make the headlines, including support for 4TB external drives.

Thankfully, A reddit thread has emerged, detailing all the “tweaks” introduced by the update, from those advertised by Sony to ones discovered by PS4 owners during their own investigations:

Detailed Tweaks:

1. User Scheduled/Created Events;
2. Play Together button – easily invite people in your party to the same game;
3. Friend online notifications can be turned on or off on a person to person basis;
4. Appear offline;
5. Remote play on PC/Mac;
6. Dailymotion Live Support for streaming, etc;
7. Teens (13-17) can now create their own accounts with limited access to play offline games, rather than having to use a sub-account;
8. Easier to search for communities by text, language, time zone;
9. You can now share OTHER people’s activities so your friend’s can see it too;
10. Tweaks to messaging – you can see short replies to messages without jumping to a different screen;
11. You can TAG other players when sharing video and screenshots (if you have your FB/Twitter permissions enabled, the tags will carry over to the sharing on those sites);
12. You can check the status of PSN (this is a feature? just use the website…);
13. USB music player is back;
14. Improvements to PS+ (improvements to managing online storage and ability to see friends who play the same games as you).

Unannounced Tweaks:

1. You can disable the screenshot on-screen notification (in Settings under Notifications) allowing you to take multiple screenshots in a row without the screenshot taken pop-up. The sound indicating the screenshot was taken still functions as normal;
2. Life From PlayStation Improvements:

• There’s a search field on the game list now. Previously you had to use the “global” search, that’d return matches for everything (pre-recorded, videos, screenshots) and not just live streams;
• You can pin up to three games that will stay on the top of the list. I watch Bloodborne and DS2 streams all the time, now I don’t have to scroll down every time to find them;

3. You can set a party member limit now. From 2-8 people;
4. Issue with early PS4s and >2TB HDDs has (probably) been fixed.