PlayStation 4′s interface was shown running live at gamescom last month by Sony’s Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida. He’s now discussed the new UI in a new interview.
Writing on PS Blog US, Yoshida reflected on the gamescom demo, but stressed that it only scratched the surface of what PS4′s interface can do.
“What I showed was only a small portion of the UI,” he explained. “Obviously the system software is still in development. We really wanted to show off the social aspect of the UI. The minute you boot up, you’ll see all the information about games you own, what your friends are doing, whether there’s any new DLC coming out, or if your friends have shared a video or screenshot. And you can also spectate anyone playing PS4.
“The demonstration was to show that my friend Eric was playing Killzone. I was able to spectate, but also join the game. All PS4 games allow you to take screenshots, so I pressed the share button to automatically take one. And PS4 also records the last 15 minutes of gameplay, so I had the choice of either uploading the screenshot or the video. So I tweeted out the screenshot to my actual Twitter account. And if I chose to, I could have posted the video to my Facebook. It’s very easy to do.”
He added that discoverability is his favorite aspect of the new UI, “It’s like checking your social media every day. I really like that people can find out about new games, information, and what their friends are doing, without even booting the game. For example, you can check out whether you have had new challenges from friends from the home screen of every game. All the important information is presented to you immediately. The same game might come out on PS3 and PS4, but playing the game on PS4 will be much more fun, I would expect.”
