Sony have made some pretty ambitious decision in their illustrious career in the console market but, when it comes to controllers at least, they’ve been magnificently conservative this past decade and a half. A colour change and convex triggers have been the only real alterations to the dualshock design in the past few years (and yes, I am purposely ignoring the woefully deluded SixAxis motion controls), but things look set to change with DualShock 4.
With a totally new form factor, redesigned triggers, analogue sticks, a touchpad and full Move style motion controls, this is a huge step for Sony. What has been of most interest though is the “share” button, a totally new addition that hasn’t been totally outlined yet. When something isn’t entirely set in stone, it gives us the leverage to speculate the crap out of it, so hear I come with ten cool ways Sony may try and use this share button. Just remember that sharing isn’t always caring.
Facebook Sharing
Facebook gets a bad rep, but its use as a communication tool has dominated the modern generation. That said, for all the good it does as an all purpose email client and event planner, it’s almost impossible to escape the endless notifications your friends post as they waste their days on casual games of questionable quality. This isn’t a casual bashing session, more a complaint about how Facebook sharing is now attached to everything. Twitter, Amazon purchases and now PS4-related adventures will be cluttering your timeline soon. Let’s just hope people don’t get too trigger happy when it comes to sharing trophies.
Instant Tweets
Similar to the double-edged sword that is Facebook sharing, instant tweets of your various gaming successes are likely with the DualShock 4’s Share button. It’s likely to be abused in the same way Facebook games have ruined my feed for year’s now but, as Twitter has always been more spam-centric anyway, it doesn’t seem too bad by comparison.
Live Streaming
Sony have already confirmed their partnership with Ustream to support streaming gameplay videos to others. You can supposedly stream to people on your friends list, but whether you can stream globally as you can on PC has yet to be seen. Though streaming might not seem like a big deal, it opens up room for making money from “let’s play”style videos and the all important…
