With new consoles always comes new features and hardware to dissect. This marketing cycle has been unique in the sense that, despite launching in just a few months, there’s still a lot we don’t know about either Sony’s PS5 or Microsoft’s Xbox Series X. On Sony’s side, for instance, we’ve yet to actually see the system being demoed in the flesh, so to speak. But developers have, and one seems to be impressed with how social the PS5 can potentially be.
Talking with Official PlayStation Magainze (Issue 179, October 2020) Oddworld Creator Lorne Lanning talked about the PS5’s social features. Unfortunately, he was somewhat restrained since it seemed he wasn’t sure what he could talk about, but he said he thinks that the features will help open up the experience for players to more human contact, while also being able to share things quicker and without leaving the system itself for the data you want or need.
“Before we’d say, ‘OK, I’m playing my console game…’ and there’s connectivity and there’s friends, sharing of stats and stuff like this, but a lot of it, you’re still going to the web to engage in the discussion.
“I think we’re going to see in this generation a lot more of that interlaced, where you’re not leaving the console as much to go get the other data… It’ll be really interesting to see how much the audience takes to it and what they do with it, and what developers do with it.
“[To] get into the sharing capabilities, the social stuff that’s been built into PS5 – I’m still not sure how much I can really talk about… I want to be careful, but they’re doing a lot more things that are like, enabling you to sort of open your experience a little wider to your human network of people that you’re connected with.”
It’s not clear what’s being referenced, but sounds as if the system has some pretty robust social features potentially. The latest game in the Oddworld series, Oddworld: Soulstorm, is planned to come this year and will be a timed console exclusive to PlayStation platforms. It will be interesting to see if that game takes advantage of some of the things Lanning is referencing.
