“No way! That’s just wizard,” I sarcastically exclaim. But it’s true, the crazies over at Sony have done the unimaginable and PS4′s “Play As You Download” feature will allow gamers to access their gaming library on different (even their friend’s) consoles.
By signing into the PSN account on any PS4 console, a player can digitally draw from their library as if pulling a game’s case off of a shelf. Of course, the biggest con of digital downloads is the time in which it takes to download.
Sony R&D senior team leader Neil Brown explains how the architecture of Sony’s next console works around this well-known dilemma:
“You can visit your friend’s house [and] log into your account and play any game from your digital library, which is good,” Brown said. “But how useful is that if it takes half a day to download the game you want to play? With Play As You Download you get much quicker access to at least the first section of the game so you can start playing quicker.”
This newly-discovered feature exemplifies Sony’s ‘instantly play wherever, whenever’ mentality by giving players the power to play a game before it’s entirely downloaded.
Nor will the game have to install onto the PS4 because of it being copied to the hard drive as the game is being downloaded.
“This makes a digital library a practical option in the real world.”
There is no word yet on how long the title may stay on your friends hard drive or if it’s simply locked out without the user’s password. Most importantly, we don’t know if this covers both disc and digital purchases, it’s better to not assume the company’s language just yet. As this story develops be sure to check back to The Game Fanatics for more updates.
EDIT: Upon further information being released, it is now know that once you sign off of your friends PS4 the data is no longer available. Those of you thinking “what if I sign off of my own PS4?” don’t worry, you can assign a “home” PS4 that provides continuous access of your games to you and every other user that logs into it. Another way to think of it is that all of your content is linked to both your home PS4 console as well as your PSN account for wherever you may roam.
