This spring, the PlayStation 4 will finally be able to play music files thanks to a feature of the upcoming version 2.0 firmware update that Sony is talking a little more about.
The official PlayStation blog says the PS4 will only play music stored on USB memory sticks, and it won’t let you copy your music files onto the PS4’s hard drive. That’s nowhere near as convenient as it is on the PlayStation 3, but I guess that’s progress and better than nothing.
The blog only mentions four supported file formats: MP3, MP4, M4A and 3GP. There was no mention of other popular formats like WMA, AAC or FLAC, but there is some hope these and others will be supported as the blog specifically says “Supported filename extensions include MP3, MP4, M4A, and 3GP”.
Interestingly, MP4 is a video file format, but Sony has remained mum on whether that means an updated video player for more than just Blu-rays will also appear in this update.
At the very least you’ll be able to play games while listening to your own playlist of tunes, you’re just going to have to do it with a USB stick poking out of your PS4’s front.
Other enhancements
Several other newly-unveiled features of update 2.0 are looking good, including the option to finally add games to your PlayStation Plus account without having to download them. That means they’ll be there should you need to install them, but you won’t absolutely have to do it right away, a tactic that can potentially save on hard drive space. The PS4’s 500GB drive fills up way too fast as it is with so many 20+GB installs, so this is a definite boon.
And if you hate the inability to customise your PS4’s background colour, you’ll be happy to know that over and above the new Themes they’re introducing, update 2.0 brings seven new colours to choose from, : gold, blue, red, green, purple, pink and grey. Although honestly those options don’t exactly inspire me with confidence, especially the last three. Grey, Sony? Really?
Voice commands have been enhanced as well, and just reading about them makes me think Sony has taken a bit of a leaf from the Xbox One book. For instance, saying “PlayStation” begins the command procedure, and “All Commands” brings up a list of the available voice commands; the Xbox One has been something similar all along. Entirely new commands have been added to enhance broadcast options, like “start broadcast”, “end broadcast” and “find face”.
There’s a bunch of other enhancements to read about on the blog post, but still nothing concrete about an actual release date. The closest they came to a hint was an answer from Sony’s Fred Dutton in the comments that said “Hey folks. Sorry I can’t be clearer at present, but we’ll confirm a date very shortly. You’ve not got long to wait.”
If I were a betting man, I’d wager we’ll be seeing update 2.0 before the likes of Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Far Cry 4 and Dragon Age: Inquisition land in November.
[Source & Image – PlayStation EU Blog]
