During the PS4 reveal in February, Sony made a pretty big deal about the Share button that will be featured on the next-gen console's controller. The button, which will allow users to stream video and screenshots of whatever game they're playing, was billed as one of the cornerstones to the PS4's integration with social media platforms.
However, new PS4 news suggests that Sony is already backtracking on the Share button and its promise to allow gamers the ability to share any and all content as they wish. In an interview with Sony Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida, 4Gamer.net asked about the origin and planned scope of the PS4's share button:
"We were trying to think of a way to make it easier for users to upload video, and one day a member of our in-house production team just said, 'How about a Share button?' We called out in unison, 'That's it!' "
Unfortunately, some PS4 game developers were not as thrilled as Sony over the innovation. Yoshida continues:
"There will be parts of a game that the maker does not want people to be able to see," he said. "For example, on Vita, developers can in certain scenes disable the feature that lets users take a screenshot, and (the Share function) will have a similar mechanism. The creator may not want to make video of the final boss sharable, for instance."
While keeping gamers from spoiling plot points to their friends might not sound like the worst thing in the world, it indicates that Sony and its affiliates are still approaching DRM from the standpoint of censorship. This approach is flawed for the simple reason that Sony doesn't have the ability to prevent you from sharing your content, anyway. There will be, as there are now, a plethora of methods to upload screenshots and gameplay footage to wherever you want them. Sony can, however, get in your way and make the process a little more frustrating, and apparently, it's what the company has elected to do.
